9/8/2023 0 Comments Western blot results![]() ![]() Western blot, or western blotting, is a technique widely used in research to separate and identify proteins. ![]() You’ll get to grips with the essential information required before launching into the protocol itself. In Part 1 of our series on western blot, we’ll take you through the basics of this incredibly popular and useful technique. We’ll guide you through western blot basics and essential protocols before moving on to optimization, troubleshooting, and more advanced techniques. And like me, they will live, however briefly, with the belief that they have HIV.Welcome to our training series on western blot. For the foreseeable future, patients who receive nonviral Western Blots will be misdiagnosed. My indeterminate test was the result of a lab error nonviral Western Blots always are. Had the recommendations of the Confirmatory Testing Laboratory, the Association of Public Health laboratories, and the Blood Products Advisory Committee been adopted more than a decade ago, I could have avoided the entire experience. Without insurance, the process would have cost more than $2,000 an RNA test alone is about $500. In all, I received six HIV tests in the span of less than a month. “But we should run one more immunoassay.” “I have no idea why the Western Blot was indeterminate,” he said. Smith didn’t explain the delay-the test takes less than a week-nor did he attempt to explain his original misdiagnosis. Rapid tests are popular in public health clinics but are not yet widely used by most primary care doctors, and so for now, the quandary remains.įinally, more than two weeks later, my RNA test came back negative. Rapid test immunoassays are quickly solving this conundrum: Clinicians can tell a patient his status in only 20 minutes. This method has the benefit of ensuring that the patient knows his status whether or not he ever follows up. Others, however, believe that calling a patient and simply asking him to come in to discuss an HIV test is an obvious giveaway of an unwanted result, and that the news should simply be broken immediately, over the phone. Some doctors refuse to tell patients over the phone, choosing instead to make an appointment and tell them in person so they can quell the patient’s panic and ask crucial follow-up questions. There are several ways to tell a patient he has HIV. When a patient receives this anomalous result, he is usually thrust into the formal process of an HIV diagnosis. Because the problem is so rare, it has attracted little research or attention from the press. Many doctors are unaware of the nonviral bands and think them to be a sign of early seroconversion. Yet none of their recommendations were ever taken. If it turns up one band or several “equivocal” bands, the test is considered “indeterminate” and should be run again in about a month.Īll of these groups recognized the same fact: Nonviral bands show up as a result of a lab error, not a blood infection. If a Western Blot turns up two or more reactive bands, the patient is considered HIV-positive. These tests also search for antibodies, but rather than turning “reactive” or “nonreactive,” they detect about 10 different “viral bands.” These bands are specific antibodies that bind to different components of the virus. It must be followed up with a confirmatory test, usually a Western Blot. If an immunoassay test turns up HIV-related antibodies, it’s considered “reactive.” But a reactive immunoassay is not considered proof of an HIV infection. (Earlier generations of immunoassays were called ELISAs, pronounced “Eliza” most immunoassays today are a newer generation called EIAs, but many doctors still call them ELISAs as shorthand.) The immune system floods the body with these antibodies soon after HIV infection as it attempts, in vain, to fight off the virus. Rather, the primary diagnostic tool, an immunoassay, tests for antibodies that react to HIV. ![]()
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