This article about hCG, was recently posted here:
[http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/2020/PRIMETIME_010419_abbott_feature.html]
High hCG Levels, False Positives:
"Rufer is among the 10 percent of the population, whose blood contains
natural substances that can interfere with lab tests, and cause results
that are false positive."
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some quotes:
"I can't have kids," she says, "and I desperately want to have a
family." Compounding the physical and emotional pain that haunts her
every day, doctors have discovered Rufer never had cancer at all.
Rufer has brought a lawsuit against Abbott Laboratories, one of the
world's largest diagnostic and pharmaceutical companies, ... claiming
that flawed results from their Axsym BHCG pregnancy test led to
unnecessary cancer treatments, including chemotherapy and a
hysterectomy.
High HCG Level
Three years ago, soon after Rufer was married, she went to the doctor
because of irregular bleeding. The doctor took a blood sample for the
Axsym BHCG routine pregnancy test, one of the most common blood
pregnancy tests in the country.
The test results came back positive, showing Rufer was pregnant. But her
doctor could find no baby. Additional Axsym pregnancy tests came back
positive for Rufer, and still there was no indication of a pregancy.
When a woman is pregnant, she produces high levels of a hormone called
beta human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG).
But if there is no baby, the elevated HCG levels can be a sign of a rare
form of cancer, called a "gestational trophoblastic tumor".
If untreated, it can spread rapidly and kill. If treated early with
chemotherapy, it is highly curable. In fact, early treatment is so
important, that doctors sometimes order chemotherapy, even if there is
no evidence of a tumor.
Rufer was referred to a cancer specialist, at the University of
Washington Medical Center in Seattle, for more extensive tests. Though
scans showed no sign of a tumor, her HCG level continued to be
alarmingly high. Doctors diagnosed her with cancer, and she began
chemotherapy immediately.
Chemotherapy continued for four months, but Rufer's HCG levels on the
Abbott test remained between 250 and 350, while a normal level is less
than five.
She was told she would have to have a hysterectomy. Tissue samples
after her hysterectomy, showed no evidence of cancer.
At first, her HCG levels dropped, but then went back up. Then, doctors
saw two suspicious spots on her lung scan, so she had additional
surgery. Doctors still found no cancer, and yet her HCG levels remained
elevated.
Then came a stunning relevation: "They ended up finding out that I have
never had cancer," says Rufer. "That this test was faulty from the
beginning, and that I had never had this disease. I had been treated for
no reason at all."
False Positives
Rufer is not the first, to have blood pregnancy test results, indicate a
false positive.
Laurence Cole, a Yale University researcher who published an article
about women who are misdiagnosed with cancer, based on incorrect
pregnancy tests, ... found that Rufer is among the 10 percent of the
population, whose blood contains natural substances that can interfere
with lab tests, and cause results that are false positive.
No lab test is 100 percent perfect, and other companies that make
pregnancy tests measuring HCG, have also shown false positives. But
Cole, who has become an expert witness in cases against Abbott, believes
the company has a greater problem. "We are still to this day, hearing
about false positive results in the Abbott Axsym test," he says.
Abbott's Response
In numerous statements to ABCNEWS, Abbott insists its test is no more
prone to false positives, than any other test on the market.
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Susan, Su_Texas my opinions
