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HIV DNA test? How accurate is it?

Hello Doctors:

I have severe ocd so you can imagine my concern on this question. I had unprotected oral sex where I received. The girl said that she did not have anything but regardless (ocd) makes me worry more that she possibly did. I know the chances are extremely slim to contract hiv from this particular action but naturally I still worry. I am scheduled to have an HIV-DNA test done. My only concern is that I am seeing across the web that false positives show up on the exam which would obviously push me over the top in my worries. How common are the false positives and is there anything that makes it false positive over the next thing. It has been 21 days since my interaction and I am supposed to have the test tomorrow. If its too risky to be positive when it shouldn't be, should I mentally wait it out for the anti body test? Any help is good help!

On a side note, can anyone find out who you are on here esp after putting in my cc info? I just want to make sure everything is confidential.
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300980 tn?1194929400
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
We receive this question repeatedly.  Before I comment on the PCR test however, let me remind you, as you have already been told on the HIV Prevention Community site, that the odds that your partner had HIV are very low (probably less than 1 in 10,000) and that there are NO cases is which HIV has been proven to be transmitted by receipt of fellatio - none, not one!!!

As for the PCR test, this is a valuable tool for evaluating response to HIV therapy but not for diagnosis.  Here is a reply I provided an earlier client- "In general we do not recommend HIV PCR testing for diagnosis is HIV infection for several reasons.  While the PCR is likely to become positive more quickly than other antibody detection tests (i.e. usual blood tests), at the present time the blood tests are becoming more and more sensitive and detecting infection earlier and earlier so that the time difference in detection between PCR test and antibody detection tests is becoming smaller and smaller and at present is, in general only a week or two.  In addition the time course over which the PCR tests become positive is less well described than for the blood tests and, as a result, it is difficult to make a definitive statement on what a negative PCR test means at any time within a few weeks of exposure to a HIV infected or possibly infected partner.  PCR tests are also more expensive than regular antibody tests.  Finally and most importantly, the false positive rate for PCR tests (i.e. a positive result in persons who do not have HIV) is higher than for blood tests.  Each of this on this Forum have seen a number of people who were worried needlessly because of false positive tests. For all of these reasons, we rarely recommend testing for HIV diagnosis using PCR. "

You'll have to ask the MedHelp administrators about confidentiality.  It is my understanding that they are.  EWH
Helpful - 1
Avatar universal
Dr. Hook,

You said that there was no documented case... Why does the CDC say there have been a few cases of it? I don't doubt you. I just want to make sure.

Thank you!
Helpful - 0
300980 tn?1194929400
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
The CDC is overly conservative in all of its recommendations. The case they are thinking of was the rsult of performing, not receiving fellation.  EWH
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Thank you Dr. Hook. Its tough when you have severe OCD. I am under treatment for it.
Helpful - 0

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