Circulating Immune Complexes

[Rain]

My son needs the lab "circulating immune complexes (c1q, C3d, Raji cell immune complex). Dr. K wants the tests run. I asked my local pediatrician to put in the lab order (for insurance reasons) - and neither the pediatrician nor the lab "know what those test are." The lab suggested that they are genetic tests which would require us to get insurance per-authorization. Is that right? If not, is there a code or another name or something? I googled it, but could not figure it out. Anyone have guidance? Thanks so much.

 

 

Background (in case you are interested):

Long story condensed: DS 12 was dx with "classic" PANDAS (sudden onset ocd and positive strep infection) in late 2010 (age 10). After trying other things with little improvement, we saw Dr. K who recommended IVIg. We convinced our local pediatrician to order the IVIg in August 2011 - and it worked! For about 9 months we saw 95% recovery. Then in summer of 2012 he regressed - to about 50% recovered. Dr. K suggested a second IVIg (Sept 2012) but my DS did not improve, in fact he declined even further. By December 2012, he was the worst we have seen him. We tried different antibiotics with very slight ups and downs, but no significant change. We had his throat swabbed like 5 times - and all the family members swabbed multiple times - no positive cultures. Finally - in February 2013 - we ran blood test -- sure enough - elevated AntiDnase levels (significantly higher than before the second IVIg). So, now we're decreasing antibiotics, and running a full blood work up to try to see what is going on. Hence, the question. Thanks again.

[LNN]

These are not genetic tests. They are tests that look at how active the immune system is. Most commercial labs have a test for them, tho the phelbotomist probably doesn't run them often and therefore has "never heard of them."

 

Here's Quest Diagnostics tests:

C3d/C1q Immune Panel

this is a list I got when I thyped "raji cell" into the search bar on the test menu - I see no direct mention of raji cell but didn't read every single test

http://www.questdiagnostics.com/testcenter/testMenuSearch.action?keyword=raji+cell+complex&totalResultCount=0&currentResultsetStart=0&results=&submitValue=Search

 

My point is that these are not specialty tests. Just not ordered often, so the technician is unfamiliar. You can probably do a similar search on Labcorp's site or your local lab and get the test numbers. You usually have to go to the physician section of the lab's site to find the test menu.