Lab Result Verification

[kam_kam_2016]

Good evening everyone!

I just joined the forum because I have a few questions regarding a recent blood test that has be a bit concerned. I would consider myself low/moderate risk (I have never used IV drugs and I practice safe sex, but I work in a medical clinic that often sees many patients with infectious diseases including HCV).  I recently underwent a full STD panel, and the results for HCV were as follows:

Hepatits C antibody - Reactive (Signal to cut-off --> My result: 1.1; Non-reactive <1.0)

Since I came up positive for the Ab, the lab went ahead and ran a quantitative real time PCR test for HCV RNA (I think they did it twice because the results show up twice with different reference ranges, but I am not sure how to interpret the results). The results came back not detected for both tests.

Based on my understanding, there are two possibilities in this situation: 1) I was exposed to HCV at some point and my immune system fought it off and is now producing the Abs, or 2) There was a false positive with the HCV antibody assay.

I was hoping someone would be able to assist me in finding out which of the possible scenarios is most likely based on the signal to cut-off ratio my test has provided.

Thank you!

[flyinlynn]

I agree with SurfsideGal but just to add the important thing is you don't have hep c

even if you had been exposed in the past vs false positive there is kn way to know which and it doesn't matter. Many with hep c have no idea where or when they became infected.

Not knowing why is just something they and you will have to live with

[SurfsideGal]

It is likely that your antibody result is a false positive because your signal to cut off ratio is so low. But, you have no viral load so you do not have the virus. The RNA test is usually reported in international units and in log form. They are not run twice. No worries for you.