HIV test
a test used like the less expensive Western blot to confirm the results of an ELISA.
The premiere test that can identifies the genetic material, the RNA, of the HIV virus is called PCR (the polymerase chain reaction). PCR can detect an early HIV infection before antibodies are evident and determine whether a baby born to an HIV-positive mother will have HIV. A test similar to PCR testing, called the branched DNA test, also detects the RNA of HIV.
Read Also:
- Hives
A raised, itchy area of skin that may be a sign of an allergic reaction. It can be rounded or flat-topped but is always elevated above the surrounding skin. It reflects circumscribed dermal edema (local swelling of the skin). The hives are usually well circumscribed but may be coalescent and will blanch with pressure. A […]
- Heredity
The genetic transmission of characteristics from parent to child.
- Hereditary spherocytosis
50 chance to have HS. The treatment of hereditary spherocytosis is to remove the spleen (splenectomy). Although the red cell defect persists, the breakup of the red cells (hemolysis) ceases. Splenectomy, however, is a hazard in young children. Young children without a spleen are at increased risk for overwhelming sepsis (bloodstream infection), particularly with the […]
- Hereditary prostate cancer
A genetic form of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer risk has a genetic component. Men with a father or brother with prostate cancer are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer as men with no affected relatives. The risk increases with increasing number of affected relatives, such that men with two or three first-degree relatives affected […]
- HNPCC
Hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer.