Test Question

Wondering what this means...I was told my first test was reactive so they used the "gold standard" test which provded negative...why would anything react in the first place can anyopne explain these results?

Syphilis

Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) test with reflex to Quantitative RPR
RPR (Monitor) w/Refl Titer
FTA-ABS
non-reactive 1:1
NEGATIVE

[Vance2335]

Some tests done can give a false positive. So when a positive test is obtained for syphilis they do a confirmation test. Since this test was negative/non-reactive then it means you are negative.

The reason why they use a different test for confirmation is because it is more expensive and false positives are rare (but can happen).