Hi all -
I stumbled across this article by Carl Brenner when looking for some other information, and there was an interesting passage about
false positives on ELISA tests:
https://www.lymedisease.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Image13-link-pdf-brenner.pdf
Bottom of page 1 said...
It is possible that a given patient serum can react with the B. burgdorferi
preparation even if the patient hasn’t been exposed to Bb, perhaps because Bb shares proteins with another infectious agent that the patient’s immune system has encountered. For example, some patients with periodontal disease, which is sometimes associated with an oral spirochete, might test positive on a Lyme ELISA, because their sera will react to components of Bb (like the flagellar protein, which is shared by many spirochetes) even though they themselves have never been infected with Bb. Therefore, some positive Lyme disease ELISA results can be “false” positives.
To distinguish the false positives from the true positives, a more specific laboratory
technique, known as immunoblotting, is used.
He implies that this false-positive interaction is no longer a concern when you progress to immunoblotting, but this made me wonder.... the author gives one example of where an interaction could cause false positives on ELISA (due to periodontal disease - a.k.a. gum disease), but are there others?
Any experience or thoughts here?
K