This article forms part of our 'Tests and results' series for 2012, which aims to provide information about common tests that general practitioners order regularly. It considers areas such as indications, what to tell the patient, what the test can and cannot tell you, and interpretation of results.

Difficulties with serology for papillomavirus are associated with the large number of human papillomavirus, cross-reactions between papillomavirus, and to the diversity of lesions and target sites for infection. In addition, the expression of the papillomavirus in the superficial layers of the epithelium gives rise to the weak presentation to immunocompetent cells of viral antigens, which in tu...

Mycobacterium leprae is the causative agent of leprosy, a disease that, despite having an effective cure with multidrug therapy (MDT), leaves millions of cured patients with sequelae as a consequence of the nerve damage that forms the hallmark of leprosy. A number of diagnostic issues hamper the correct and timely diagnosis of leprosy and the correct classification of patients for treatment pur...

We conducted a prospective hospital based study from February 2009-April 2011 to identify the possible pathogens of central nervous system (CNS) infections in adults admitted to a tertiary referral hospital (Patan Hospital) in Kathmandu, Nepal. The pathogens of CNS infections were confirmed in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) using molecular diagnostics, culture (bacteria) and serology. 87 patients we...

A retrospective review was conducted of yellow fever vaccination among laboratory workers receiving annual serologic assessment to determine the initial and long-term response after boosting. Patients were divided into three groups based on pre-vaccination serology: Group 1, 1:10; Group 2, 1:20-1:40 and Group 3, >1:40. The percent with > or = four-fold increase in titers after booster vaccinati...

Introduction . Blood transfusion is a strong practice in traumatology, internal medicine, haematology, obstetrics and transplantation, which demands safety of haemotransfusion with estimating the red blood cell group antigens donor recipient blood. Routine immunotyping techniques usually provide for an antigen identification to weak subgroups, albeit certain inherent limitations serology tests ...

aim : we investigated whether the level of il8 was different in patients with chronic and acute toxoplasma gondii infection during the pregnancy compared with control group. background : it is well established that t.gondii infection induces a strong cell-mediated immune response. patients and methods : elisa was used to determine the level of il8 in sera of 568 pregnant women. patients were di...

avian leukosis virus subgroup-j (alv-j). mycoplasma gallisepticum (mg) and mycopjasma synviae (ms) are important pathogens in chickens that cause severe economical losses in poultry industry throughout the world. seven broiler grandparent flocks of iran (six broiler strains) were sampled randomly at the ages of 8-63 wk (100 samples from each flock) for antibody detection to alv-j, mg, and ms by...

conclusions considering the results, it seems necessary to conduct prospective studies in order to identify factors responsible for the high seroprevalence of hev in isfahan hd units. results anti-hev igg was detected in 27 (9.9%) controls and 78 (28.3%) patients, with the difference being statistically significant (p < 0.05). furthermore, there was a significant association between positive an...