CTD screen (ana)?

[Moomin8]

I picked up some blood test results today and this was among them...what is ctd screen? Not had it before. My results were :

CTD SCREEN (ANA) 0.8-above high reference limit .

Range 0.0-0.69

It mentions "equivocal : 0.7-1.0"

Confusion. com 😊

[helixhelix]

CTD probably means connective tissue disease, which is the general name for our charming bunch of maladies - RA, PsA, lupus, scleroderma and so on.  So maybe double checking your antinuclear antibodies (ANA) to make sure you have the right diagnosis.    This is just a guess, so ask your doc. 

[Damaged]

Connective Tissue Disorder

[Moomin8 in reply to Damaged]

That's what I thought  it I was just confused as I hadn't had it in all the bloods I've had to date. And what does my result show?  Has anyone had one done for ra?

[ITYFIALMCTT]

It looks like your result was sufficiently high to be out of the 'normal range' and into the acknowledged grey area of, "Maybe, maybe not. Could be normal for this person. If not, possibly a number of things might have influenced this reading: maybe it's another medication or some over the counter preparation that has increased this". Your current result is in the 'equivocal' range (0.7-1.0 for your lab) because the number was not high enough to be in the, "Definitely, emphatically something going on here" range but over the border of normal (0.0-0.69 for your lab). 

Clear as mud, eh? I hope that your GP or whomever you discuss this with can tell you what the next steps are. Section 3 of this discussion from LabTests might be helpful.

labtestsonline.org.uk/under...

Best wishes for a helpful discussion.

[ITYFIALMCTT in reply to ITYFIALMCTT]

From Rheumatology.org: "The prevalence of ANAs in healthy individuals is about 3-15 percent. The production of these autoantibodies is strongly age-dependent, and increases to 10-37 percent in healthy persons over the age of 65. Even healthy people with viral infections can have a positive ANA, albeit for a short time."

So, definitely something to discuss with your health team. It might be something or it might not. I hope that a clear picture emerges soon for you.

[nomoreheels]

I had this test early on Moomin. The text I have explaining what it is for is in Spanish but hopefully you'll be given an alert to translate it to English reumatologiaclinica.org/es/.... Rushing, visitors have just arrived, hope it helps.