ANA POSITIVE

[Queencara78]

Hi all,

Bloods have shown ANA positive 1/160 titre and nucleolar pattern, what does this mean?

[Bacardibabe76]

Hiya.

A positive Ana may point to an autoimmune condition. However, 5% of the healthy population can have a positive Ana. The Nucleolar pattern is associated with scleroderma and polymyositis.

Best wishes xx

[Paul_Howard Partner LUPUS UK]

Hi Queencara78 ,

I'm afraid that we are not medically trained and so we cannot advise you about the results of any tests in isolation. Have you been experiencing symptoms that made your doctor request this test? Do you have an appointment to discuss the results?

There is some information about ANA results at labtestsonline.org/understa...

It is important to bear in mind that an ANA result by itself is not sufficient evidence for any diagnosis because it can occur in a number of autoimmune conditions as well as 5-10% of healthy people.

[Ianrussell69]

Don't understand the numbers but I've had several positive and several negative? Hope fully somebody on the site will help you make sense of your results

[LH44 in reply to Ianrussell69]

I had the same problem...turns out I'm only positive (1:160 & 1:320 speckled) when its done for the IFA method which is the gold standard. Most of the NHS changed to the less specific CTD screen, for that I'm always negative!! The speckled pattern is the one most likely to be missed via CTD.

[SLEepyhead123]

Very basic explanation is they dilute your blood and look for the antibodies then double the dilution and then double it again... at each stage they look for the antibodies once they can no longer find them they have your result... not quite sure how you can have a result of 1/160 as the lowest test is 1/180 which my Rheumatologist says is too low to be positive but I have seen other posts where the rheumatologist says it's positive!! Hope this helps explain how the test is done. Good luck in your journey towards a diagnosis.

Result 1: the titre

This part of the ANA test gives an estimate of how many anti-nuclear antibodies are present (i.e. the “titre”).

This is done by taking a sample of the liquid part of the blood called the serum and diluting it with a liquid called a diluent. The process is like making orange juice from a frozen concentrate. One can is diluted into 4 cans of water (the diluent).

For the ANA test, 1 part of the serum is diluted into 40 parts of diluent (called a “1:40” titre). This diluted sample is tested for the presence of ANA antibodies. If the test is positive, a new sample is made at half the strength (1:80) and tested for the presence of ANA. The test is repeated every time it is positive by diluting the sample to 1:160, 1:320, 1:640, 1:1280, and finally 1:2560.

The lowest dilution is 1:2560. When antibodies are present at the lowest dilution, this indicates that there is a very high number of antibodies in the blood. In other words, the body has mounted a substantial immune response against nuclear proteins.