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Fascinating Eurpopean Western Blots


lfran

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I really like this published paper. The authors review and compare the various laboratory rules for postive lyme diagnosis in

Europe and give % specificity and % sensitivity for the various combinations.

 

http://jcm.asm.org/c.../full/38/6/2097

 

If you look at table 10, you will see the "rules" for the labs as well as the author's suggested rules, based on their analyses. For instance, you can see that a 2-band positive of p58 and p41 together have a specificity of 94% (only 6% false positive rate) which is extremely good. If I'm reading this right. Anyone want to comment?

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Sorry - there seemed to be something wrong with the original link. Try this one. It is really a wonderful article (IMHO!)

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC86736/

 

 

I really like this published paper. The authors review and compare the various laboratory rules for postive lyme diagnosis in

Europe and give % specificity and % sensitivity for the various combinations.

 

http://jcm.asm.org/c.../full/38/6/2097

 

If you look at table 10, you will see the "rules" for the labs as well as the author's suggested rules, based on their analyses. For instance, you can see that a 2-band positive of p58 and p41 together have a specificity of 94% (only 6% false positive rate) which is extremely good. If I'm reading this right. Anyone want to comment?

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Well of course, I had to pull out my WB.

On my IgG, band 58 and 41 are both positive (and 31 and 34 IND) IgM band 18, band 41, band 58, all positive, 31, 39, 83-93 IND.

My Bartonella came back positive sky high,

but my IgG/IgM's of bands 58 and 41 (and the 18) positive was called negative by Igenex,

so turned in a Lyme blood PCR (results not in my hand)

but I know in my gut that PCR is positive, because I got a bill from it from Igenex with a funny

printout saying it is their legal job to report it, or something, and I feel it. I knew I had Lyme anyway, but, see what I'm saying? LOL.

 

My very long winded way of saying thank you, I found this interesting!

Edited by S & S
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You're welcome. I just thought it was interesting, because DS10 would have been a definite postive by European standards. It seems band 58 is much more common in a European strain (b. afzelli) than in the strain that is more common in the US

 

Well of course, I had to pull out my WB.

On my IgG, band 58 and 41 are both positive (and 31 and 34 IND) IgM band 18, band 41, band 58, all positive, 31, 39, 83-93 IND.

My Bartonella came back positive sky high,

but my IgG/IgM's of bands 58 and 41 (and the 18) positive was called negative by Igenex,

so turned in a Lyme blood PCR (results not in my hand)

but I know in my gut that PCR is positive, because I got a bill from it from Igenex with a funny

printout saying it is their legal job to report it, or something.

 

My very long winded way of saying thank you, I found this interesting!

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Yes, I had to read it over several times, but what I got from it was that European labs use different bands to diagnose a positive Lyme diagnosis than do either the CDC or Igenex. There are different strains of Lyme that show different bands more frequently, and then the authors put together "best" rules that could be adopted as a standard, based on running their samples against all the rules that were used by the different European labs.

 

Table 10 was my favorite table, because it showed that p58 and p41 together give a positive Lyme diagnosis with only an 8% false positive rate from Lab A or a 2% false positive rate from Lab B, with a 6% false positive rate by the authors' suggested European Rule 5 or 2. (I am only concerned about false positives at this point, because we are already treating my son, so I want to make sure that he does indeed have Lyme). But the false negatives were 20% or less for these rules, for those who are interested in that aspect.

 

I want to make sure I really understand this article, because it is important to me. Are there specific areas that you found problematic? If so, do you mind sharing?

 

Thanks!

 

Hmmm. .. I have IgG 58++, but my kids don't.

 

I also found it hard to really understand the article. . . .but very interesting.

 

 

IgM: 41+

IgG: 31 IND, 39 IND, 41++, 58++

Bartonella negative (Igenex)

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Hmmm. .. I have IgG 58++, but my kids don't.

 

I also found it hard to really understand the article. . . .but very interesting.

 

 

IgM: 41+

IgG: 31 IND, 39 IND, 41++, 58++

Bartonella negative (Igenex)

 

Interesting...my IgG results are almost the same as yours: 30+, 39 IND, 41+++, 58++. That's technically negative, but my IgM is CDC and IGeneX positive. PANDAS DS8 is IgM & IgG positive, and DS6 & DS4 are both IgG positive, but none of them have band 58 either. Weird.

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Three of my grandparents are from the Netherlands, and I've wondered about my "European" band 58, and the possibility of congenital lyme being passed down through the generations. I see possible lyme symptoms in both sides of my family, but who knows, I see lyme everywhere now. :wacko: I also worked one summer in a Romanian orphanage and got bit by plenty of bugs. Went hiking in the mountains, etc. And I spent a couple of weeks vacationing in Hungary. So who really knows. The world is a village now anyway - we have Chinese ladybugs here in Ontario, and Emerald Ash borers from Asia, and who knows what else. I imagine that microscopic "bugs" are immigrating too.

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Here's another study, looking at percentages for single band Western Blots, this time from China.

 

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21112481

 

Here are the relevant bands. You can see that p58 is included (with a specificity of 99.4 for IgG, now we're looking at 0.6% false positive rate for the presence of a single instance of these bands (for IgG, they don't include p41).

 

RESULTS: The following interpretation criteria were recommended: for IgG, at least one band of P83/100, P58, P39, P30, OspC, P17, P66, and OspA; for IgM, at least one band of P83/100, P58, OspA, P30, OspC, P17 or P41. In addition, syphilis, leptospirosis and other related diseases should be excluded when the positive band is P41 in IgM. For IgG criteria, the sensitivity is 73.2%, the specificity is 99.4% and Youden index is 0.726; for IgM criteria, the sensitivity is 50.6%, the specificity is 93.1% and Youden index is 0.437.

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