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Lupus is called the ‘Great Imitator’ because the symptoms that are associated with it are varied but might make the physician wrongly diagnose the condition to arthritis, heart or kidney ailment.
Making a diagnosis of Lupus can be very difficult and can take months for the doctor to put together the symptoms. There is no single test that can determine whether the patient is affected by Lupus though there are some tests that can help the doctor to come to a conclusion.
One of the most common tests that the patients have to take up once lupus is suspected are that which identify certain autoantibodies that might be present in the blood.
Anitnuclear antibody (ANA) test is done to look for autoantibodies that react against the components of the body. ANA test is not a conclusive test to diagnose Lupus though it just provides another clue for the physician to proceed to other tests.
There are other blood tests for specific autoantibodies that manifest in Lupus patients for e.g.
- anti-DNA
- anti-Sm
- anti-RNP
- anti-Ro (SSA) and;
- anti-La (SSB)
A few other tests can also be undertaken if the symptoms of the patients are still vague for diagnosis. Skin or Kidney biopsy might be done if these parts of the patients are affected. Other test that might be ordered is for anticardiolipin antibody and the presence of this antibody increases the risk of miscarriage in a pregnant woman and blood clotting.
Though these tests help the physician in diagnosing the patient’s condition they do not conclusively prove that the patient is suffering from Lupus. The physician will normally look at the entire medical history of symptoms and use the tests to determine if the patient has Lupus. |
