Tests

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Tests

Morbilliform eruption caused by administrating ampicillin to a patient with infectious mononucleosis.

Cell Culture Test

Viral Culture

This test has long been the "gold standard" of laboratory testing for herpes and is by far the most widely available. The technique is similar to that you may have seen in your high school biology class, when bacteria are grown (cultured) in a petri dish.

Highlights

Your Skin Type

Bio-Engineered Skin

Acne Vulgaris

Related Issues

(Tests)

Cell Culture Test

Antigen Test

Pap Smear

To perform a viral culture, the doctor will use a sterile swab to retrieve a sample from a lesion. A good swab will generally cause some discomfort when a sore or lesion is sampled. The sample is sent to a laboratory where it is grown for several days in a culture of healthy human cells. If the sample contains herpes, the virus will infect the cells of the culture, causing cellular changes that can be seen with a microscope.

Antigen Test

Antigen-Detection Tests

Unlike the culture method, this test doesn't require growing the virus but rather seeks to identify herpes by way of a reliable marker. The presence of antigens, fragments of the virus that are know to stimulate the immune response. A swab is taken similar to the method used for viral culture. In general, antigen detection assays are less sensitive than viral culture. Antigen-detection is usually done only in research labs or large reference laboratories.

Antigen tests can produce results more quickly than culture and are sometimes less expensive. The potential downsides are that they require better samples than culture and many do not provide a way to determine whether the sample represents infection with HSV-1 or HSV-2.

Test Type	Specimen Source	Advantages	Disadvantages
Tissue Culture	Swab/Scrape lesion	Highly specific; Widely available	Sensitivity is a function of specimen quality and sample timing
Serologic Test	Finger stick/ Draw blood	Test can be performed in absence of lesions; Type-specific tests are highly accurate.	Earliest time is 12 days post infection; some tests may not detect antibodies until 3 months post- infection. Tests that are not type- specific have inadequate accuracy.
Antigen Detection	Swab/Scrape lesion	Results more rapid than culture	Sensitivity lower than culture

Pap Smear

A Pap Smear examination usually is performed at the time of a pelvic examination, which can help detect signs of herpes in female organs. A Pap examination is a simple procedure in which your physician painlessly obtains cells from the surface of your cervix, often using a special brush. The cells are placed on a glass slide, which is sent to a laboratory.

At the laboratory, the cells are stained and then examined under a microscope. If an abnormality is found, a pathologist, a physician who specializes in laboratory medicine, studies the cells and makes the final interpretation.

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