Unfortunately, IgM/IgG-based ‘rapid tests’ have become increasingly widespread in the field of Lyme disease. ‘Here’s a lame duck, here’s a bump,’ is what the manufacturers seem to be saying about the diagnosis of Lyme disease. They are only making the problem worse.
The whole thing reminds me of a one-off building contractor who tells the client: “Here at our company, reliability, deadlines and low cost are our watchwords. You, dear client, may choose any two of these, and we’ll deliver.”
Somewhere deep down, we know it’s impossible to get something good and cheap, yet we still hold out hope.
Our health is perhaps more important than that, but still, it looks so good; the figures in the guide are so appealing.
And so, for a few thousand forints, we buy into this false sense of security, which almost always ends up costing us more later on. A missed opportunity to treat an early infection comes at a cost in terms of quality of life, time off work and healthcare costs. I’m not saying we should buy a test for a million, but laboratory serological testing fails to detect more than half of actual patients to begin with. They’re adding insult to injury by taking this flawed testing method and applying it to a system that certainly won’t make things any better. Based on results obtained in a real-world setting, even the best rapid tests have a sensitivity of no more than 20%. Of course, excellent results can be achieved on selectively chosen samples; results of over 90% – almost unbelievable – can be demonstrated. But if all this were true in reality, then genuine serological tests carried out in a laboratory setting would also be completely reliable, and then every article would not include the second sentence stating that ‘serological tests are unreliable in certain phases of the disease’, nor would the EU Parliament’s resolution state: “Lyme disease is based on clinical diagnosis”
We have written in detail about the various Lyme tests and the information that can be gleaned from them.
(C) Lyme Borreliosis Foundation
