please need your help

on aug 11th i had unprotected vaginal sex with a girl i dont no.. im really concerned and would appreciate your help.. i had a hiv pcr dna test done 21 days after exposure and it was negative.. and at 6 weeks had another pcr dna test along with standard antibody test and they were negative.. and than after 53 days had another antibody test done and it was negative.. do u think i need more testing or are these negative results conclusive enought and i should move on.. is the pcr dna test conclusive like they claim after 28 days..

[Edward W Hook, MD]

In general we do not recommend HIV PCR tests for HIV diagnosis.  The problems with these tests are: that they have a higher false positive rate than antibody tests, that the time course by which they become positive in infected persons, while certainly sooner than the antibody tests, is not well characterized; and that they tend to be expensive.  They are becoming more widely used but at the present time are not sufficient for a definitive diagnosis of HIV and while a negative test is somewhat helpful information in many situations, it is not sufficiently well characterized to be definitive.  In your case, you can be sure however that you do not have HIV. the combination of a negative antibody test now, 7 weeks following exposure along with the negative PCT tests is strong evidence that you do not have HIV.

I hope this comment is helpful to you.  You do not need further testing.  EWH