This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Sign in
Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages without signing in

Detection of anticardiolipin antibodies

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

The earlier VDRL test using cardiolipin as antigen is insensitive. Modern procedures use solid-phase radioimmunoassay - RIA - or enzyme linked immunoabsorbent assay - ELISA.

 

  • anticardiolipin ELISA is thought to have high sensitivity but low specificity
  • a positive test is strongly associated with morbidity in pregnancy than with thrombosis (1)

Since 1990, reporting of results have been standardised and are expressed in terms of GPL or MPL units.

The risk of thrombosis or spontaneous abortion increases with the titre of aCL and are greater with IgG antibodies than with IgM - for example, of 39 patients with IgG greater than 20 GPL units, 70% had a thrombotic event.

Reference:

Create an account to add page annotations

Create a free account

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.

The content herein is provided for informational purposes and does not replace the need to apply professional clinical judgement when diagnosing or treating any medical condition. A licensed medical practitioner should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions.

Connect

Copyright 2024 Oxbridge Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of OmniaMed Communications Limited. All rights reserved. Any distribution or duplication of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited. Oxbridge Solutions receives funding from advertising but maintains editorial independence.