TROPONIN TESTING TRAP: FALSE POSITIVE WITH HETEROPHILE ANTIBODIES

False increase of cardiac troponin I with heterophilic antibodies.

Antibodies, Thomas F. Fitzmaurice, Charles Brown, Nader Rifai, Alan H.B. Wu, and Kiang-Teck J. Yeo ( Department of Pathology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Dartmouth Medical School, 1 Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, NH 03756; 2 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Children’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115; and 3 Clinical Chemistry Laboratory, Hartford Hospital, Hartfo...

False Positive Troponin Levels due to Heterophil Antibodies in a Pregnant Woman

Positive troponin test results in peripheral blood can be detected either during myocardial injury or from falsely positive test results. In this report, we present the positive results of a troponin test in a 24-year-old pregnant woman referred to the emergency department with atypical chest pain, and the clinical algorithm that we used to make the correct diagnosis. This patient presented wit...

Hematologic differences in heterophile-positive and heterophile-negative infectious mononucleosis.

Infectious mononucleosis (IM) due to all causes is characterized by atypical lymphocytosis. We sought to compare hematologic parameters of infectious mononucleosis due to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection (heterophile antibody (HA) positive) with mononucleosis due to other causes. Mono-Latex Slide Agglutination Test results and complete blood counts (CBC) of 147 patients with mononucleosis wer...

False positive auto-antibodies in HIV infection.

Heterophile antibodies in human transplantation.

Sensitization of human recipients with transplantation antigens (leucocytes, skin, or kidney allografts) has resulted in the appearance of serum hemagglutinins directed against sheep, guinea pig, and rat erythrocytes. Such hemagglutinins have been identified as IgG and IgM antibodies. Their appearance was not related to AB0 erythrocyte group incompatibility between donors and recipients, and th...