Origin of Statistics

[roughyear]

I received a positive result for HSV II  (1.64) that I now believe to be a false positive result based on comments from the doctors to me and  in other posts as well as no outbreaks have occured in 7 months since possible exposure.  I now wonder about the accuracy of the statistics about the number of people that are infected. "1 in 5 adults" are infected.  Is this number based on the results of the HerpesSelect test which has a relatively high false positive rate on scores less than 3.0?  If so wouldn't the ststistics be inaccurate?

Does anyone have an aswer to this question?

I appologize if this question should not have been posted here?

[roughyear]

Thanks for following up as I have not had much of a chance to do so.  I just know that hearing a false positive result ,as I believe I have, can cause great anxiety people especially when tested as a precaution and having absolutly no symptoms.  Fortunately this forum as well as the doctors forum has plenty of information to clarify any questions and put several minds at ease.  I just hope that anyone that has a low positive result will question the possibility of false positives.


Thanks to everyone involved in this websight, the general forums, and expert forums. It is a great service to everyone

[gracefromHHP]

Ok I got us an answer - they use a non-commercially available test that has been shown to give results comparable to the WB for herpes ( references for this test are in the link to the study that I posted for additional reading ).  As far as we know there aren't the same issues with this assay as there are with the herpeselect ( sure there are false positives and false negatives - you get that with any test but as far as we know not as much of an issue as we have with the herpeselect (( which isn't a huge issue either - just something to be aware of )) ).  ( did I do the parenthesis right? lol  I swear I need to go do 5th grade english over again )

Hope that helps :)   ( and thank you VERY much Dr Hook for clarifying this to me! )

grace

[auntiejessi]

I agree - great question.  :)

Aj

[gracefromHHP]

It was a good question and one I look forward to finding an answer to for future reference myself :)  

grace

[roughyear]

Thanks for the responses.  It was just a question that I thought about.  I will read about it further.

Thanks again to everyone on the this sight.  It is a great resorce.

[gracefromHHP]

The 1 in 5 comes from the NHANES studies mainly though they are backed by other studies.   Here is the info from the study released on hsv1 and hsv2 from the 2006 nhanes on  herpes :

Laboratory Methods

Purified glycoproteins specific for HSV-1 (gG-1) or HSV-2 (gG-2) were used as antigens to detect type-specific antibodies using solid-phase enzymatic immunodot assays. The performance of the immunodot assays is high with respect to sensitivity and ability to discriminate between HSV-1 and HSV-2. In 1999-2004, the same immunodot assays and the same laboratory were used as for previous NHANES.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/296/8/964  is the full study for further reading.

I'm not sure what cutoff they use to consider someone truly positive as they've not listed that in their study. I know Dr Handsfield though knows Dr Xu at the CDC who authored the study ( I'm sure Dr Hood does too ) if you wanted to ask him on his board for more details about if there were cut off rates as to what was considered positive and what wasn't or if they confirmed any low positives with additional testing.

grace

[auntiejessi]

Good question.

Its based on a lot of different things, really.  One is a study they did where they randomly tested people at private doctors offices, and 1 in 4 came back positive.  I don't know the values of those tests, though.

Grace might be able to better answer this.  

I'm sure she'll be along soon.

Aj