False-Positive Reaction to VDRL Test With Prozone Phenomena

Abstract
SEROLOGIC TESTS for detection of antibody to treponemata have made it possible to differentiate the patient with treponemal disease from the false-positive reactor to the reagin tests.1 Patients exhibiting such false-positive reactions are often found to have associated infectious or neoplastic or autoimmune diseases.2,3 The highest titer of a standard complement fixation test (Hinton) seen among 200 biologic false-positive reactors in Massachusetts was 1:16.4 The exaggerated production of reagin antibody in 1% to 2% of syphilitics whose disease is in the secondary stage results in a prozone phenomenon.5 The following report concerns a patient with a false-positive, high-titer VDRL (venereal disease research laboratories) microflocculation test with a prozone phenomenon associated with lymphosarcoma. Report of a Case A 66-year-old woman was first seen at the University of California Medical Center in January 1965 because of shortness of breath. In November 1964, a "flu-like" syndrome with chronic cough

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