Monospot test

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The monospot test is a rapid test for infectious mononucleosis due to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The test is sensitive for heterophile antibodies produced by the human immune system in response to EBV infection. Commercially-available test kits are 70-92% sensitive and 96-100% specific.^[1] This means that if you do not have the infection, it is unlikely (0-4% chance, depending on whose estimate you believe - the real chance is just one number for a given test) that the test will be wrong. If you do have the infection, the sensitivity tells us that there is an 8% to 30% that the test will nevertheless report that you do not have the infection.

It is more useful to know the positive predictive value (chance of a positive test being associated with disease), but this depends on the population tested, not just the test.

[edit] References

1. ^ Elgh F, Linderholm M, Clinical and Diagnostic Virology 7 (1996) 17-21 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0928-0197(96)00245-0

This article is uncategorized. Please help improve this article by adding it to one or more categories, in addition to a stub category. (how?) Please remove this tag after categorizing, but not before. This article has been tagged since May 2008.