Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
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. It is one of several nontreponemal tests for syphilis (along with the Wassermann test and the VDRL test).
This reaction is the foundation of “nontreponemal” assays such as the VDRL (Venereal Disease Research Laboratory) test and Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) test. Both these test are flocculation type tests that use an antigen-antibody interaction. The complexes remain suspended in solution and therefore visible due to the lipid based antigens.
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).
The detection of microbes in the blood (most commonly accomplished by blood cultures [2]) is always abnormal. A bloodstream infection is different from sepsis , which is characterized by severe inflammatory or immune responses of the host organism to pathogens.
In the early part of the twentieth century, the medical science of venereology encompassed only the five classical venereal diseases: gonorrhea, syphilis, chancroid, lymphogranuloma venereum, and granuloma inguinale (donovanosis). [6] [7] The history of virology shows that, in the first decade of the 20th century, viruses were not well understood.
Carrageenans are a family of linear sulfated polysaccharides chemically related to heparan sulfate, which many microbes utilize as a biochemical receptor for initial attachment to the cell membrane. Thus, carrageenan and other microbicides of its class act as decoy receptors for viral binding. [citation needed]
This test is very useful as the trend of titres are correlated to disease activity (i.e. falling titres indicate successful treatment). It has a very good sensitivity for syphilis, except in late tertiary form.[citation needed]