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The Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test (VDRL) is a blood test for syphilis and related non-venereal treponematoses that was developed by the eponymous US laboratory. The VDRL test is used to screen for syphilis (it has high sensitivity ), whereas other, more specific tests are used to diagnose the disease.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-approved standard tests include the VDRL test (a slide test), the rapid plasma reagin (RPR) test (a card test), the unheated serum reagin (USR) test, and the toluidine red unheated serum test (TRUST). [2] These have mostly replaced the first nontreponemal test, the Wassermann test. [citation needed]
The VDRL test of the CSF is a common test for making a diagnosis of neurosyphilis. A positive VDRL test in the presence of neurological symptoms is sufficient to confirm a diagnosis of neurosyphilis. [4] However, a negative VDRL result does not rule out neurosyphilis.
Replacement tests such as the VDRL test and the RPR test, initially based on flocculation techniques (Hinton), have been shown to produce far fewer false positive results. [citation needed] Indeed, the "biologic false positives" of modern tests usually indicate a serious alternate condition, often an autoimmune disease.
Syphilis (/ ˈ s ɪ f ə l ɪ s /) is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. [1] The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent or tertiary.
The rapid plasma reagin test (RPR test or RPR titer) is a type of rapid diagnostic test that looks for non-specific antibodies in the blood of the patient that may indicate an infection by syphilis or related non-venereal treponematoses.
Since the antibodies do not bridge between antigens, no agglutination occurs. Because no agglutination occurs, the test is interpreted as negative. In this case, the result is a false negative. The range of relatively high antibody concentrations within which no reaction occurs is called the prozone. [5]
The fluorescent treponemal antibody absorption (FTA-ABS) test is a diagnostic test for syphilis.Using antibodies specific for the Treponema pallidum species, such tests would be assumed to be more specific than non-treponemal testing such as VDRL but have been shown repeatedly to be sensitive but not specific for the diagnosis of neurosyphilis in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).