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Another question on false negatives

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2015 4:02 am
by Quentin2
Hello,

I am suffering from what my doctor believes is a duodenal ulcer. The symptoms started many years ago but disappeared after a couple of weeks, until a year ago when I took ibuprofen for flu symptoms that would not go away. My doctor suspected that the ibuprofen may not have caused the ulcer but merely could have worsened damage done by H. Pylori, so a blood test was done - it came back negative.

Considering that many months have passed now after having stopped the ibuprofen and been on omeprazole and then pantocid and the pain remaining, I am wondering if the two courses of antibiotics I was on (for flu) could have caused a false negative result since I stopped them a day before the test?

Re: Another question on false negatives

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:10 am
by Helico_expert
if you took antibiotics, then yes, it's likely to give false negative results. Please follow this guideline to how to use UBT.

http://www.helico.com/PYtest_guide_2013.pdf

Re: Another question on false negatives

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2015 12:43 pm
by Quentin2
Thank you for your reply! Just to be sure though, I did not do the breath test, it was the blood test. Does the same apply?

Re: Another question on false negatives

Posted: Tue Oct 20, 2015 9:06 am
by Helico_expert
I am so sorry. My bad. Blood test is very sensitive and unlikely to give false negative result. So, if the blood test is negative, most likely it is true negative. antibiotics or PPI will not affect the blood test result.