Abstract
Ten of thirteen patients with positive histolatex agglutination titers of 1:32 or greater had no evidence of acute histoplasmosis.Three of these false positives had rheumatoid arthritis. A fourth had a rising mycoplasma complement fixation titer, and the fifth had a high titer of cold agglutinins. All of these are associated with abnormal immunoglobulin M production. To evaluate the role of rheumatoid factor in producing false positive histolatex agglutination, the histolatex test was performed on sera from 32 patients having rheumatoid factor at a titer of 1:40 or greater. Four of these sera agglutinated the histoplasmin-coated latex particles at titers of 1:32 or greater. Review of clinical records suggests the this reactivity is nonspecific. It is our purpose to call attention to rheumatoic factor as a cause of false positive histolatex agglutination.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Bennett D. E. The histoplasmin latex agglutination test: clinical evaluation and a review of the literature. Am J Med Sci. 1966 Feb;251(2):175–183. doi: 10.1097/00000441-196602000-00008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Gordon M. A., Lapa E. W. Elimination of rheumatoid factor in the latex test for cryptococcosis. Am J Clin Pathol. 1974 Apr;61(4):488–494. doi: 10.1093/ajcp/61.4.488. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Johnson J. E., Roberts G. D. Blocking effect of rheumatoid factor and cold agglutinins on complement fixation tests for histoplasmosis. J Clin Microbiol. 1976 Feb;3(2):157–160. doi: 10.1128/jcm.3.2.157-160.1976. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- PLOTZ C. M., SINGER J. M. The latex fixation test. I. Application to the serologic diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Am J Med. 1956 Dec;21(6):888–892. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]