Tuesday, January 31, 2012

false positive syphilis in SLE

why do patients with SLE have positive VDRL and RPR tests for syphilis?

40-50% SLE patients have anti-phospholipid antibodies,which often reach with cardiolipin antigen used as reagent in serologic test for syphilis. the cross-reactivity cause false positive syphilis test in SLE patients.

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