HIV Testing

[question88]

About 8+ years ago I had unprotected sex.  I finally got tested at the CLeveland Clinic 6/05.  The doctor said that "the test was negative.  That I do not have the virus in my body.  That my white cell count was normala dn my T-celss adequate.  That this proves I do not have the virus."  

Yesterday I was in a meeting and a biologist with background in testing stated that "you have to wait ten years to get correct testing results, that anything less than ten years, even if the test says you don't have HIV you could still have it.

Is this true.....for 8+ years I have worried and finally got the courage to go and get tested, I went to the Cleveland CLinic, a good hospital and now I'm told that the test could be wrong?!?!?!

HELP

[moon hurdler]

Hope someone can advice.

I had a high-risk encounter recently. I went for a Roche test at 7 weeks 2 days and it came back negative. My question is: is a Roche Test (Amplicor Screen, i think) a reliable indication of my final outcome? I have read on this website that 6 weeks ELIZA is more than reliable. Is it true for the Roche Test as well?

Thank you.

[question88]

Just FYI, my encounter was with a male..who used drugs and it was just a one time, shouldn't have happened situation.  I waited 8+ years to get tested because I was ill and thought I had then passed it along to my husband.  I wish I had never heard this biologist talk.  Now I doubt the Clinic and the results!!!!!

[vs7829]

Dude - 3 months is conclusive and the doc says by 6 weeks 99% of results will be conclusive! I have no idea what the biologist is talking about but if I hope he know a lot more about biology than he does about std's

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Let's assume that in people who have had HIV for 8 years, the test will miss it one time in 100,000.  It's probably closer to 1 in a million or even 10 million, but we'll use 100,000.  Now figure the odds you caught HIV in the encounter you describe.  First, how likely is it that the guy had HIV?  Let's say a 10% chance.  (In most of the country, around 1 in 20 injection drug users is HIV positive, but we'll boost it to 1 in 10.)  If he was infected, the chance you got HIV from any single episode of unprotected vaginal intercourse is something like 1 in 1000.  So the odds you had HIV at the time you finally went in for HIV test were around 1 in 10,000.  (Even without testing, many people would live comfortably with those odds and not worry about it.)

So what does the negative test result do to your chance of having HIV?  Those odds are 1 in 100,000 times 1 in 10,000 (i.e., 0.000001 x 0.0001) = 0.0.0000000001.  That's 1 in a billion, billion with a B.  Your actual risk is lower still.

You don't have HIV. Your biologist was wacko, unless you misunderstood him.

HHH, MD

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

I can't fathom anybody knowledgeable saying that. I have to assume the biologist isn't much of an expert in HIV infection and its diagnosis or that you misunderstood him.  Certainly long-delayed seroconversion has been documented, but those cases pretty much ended a decade or so ago with improved testing technologies; if it occurs, it is so rare as to be ignored.

Assyming you haven't been exposed again since June, you can be 100% confident you aren't infected with HIV.

Good luck--- HHH, MD