The committee proposed limiting the bands that could be reported in a Western Blot for diagnosis of Lyme disease. These antigens were the antigens chosen for human vaccine trials. This abstract showed that, under the old criteria, all of 66 pediatric patients with a history of a tick bite and bull's-eye rash who were symptomatic were accepted as positive under the old Western Blot interpretation. U nder the newly proposed criteria, only 20 were now considered positive. This is not true.
False positives based on species specific bands are rare.
Elisa Test T he Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbant Serum Assay, is the simplest, least expensive, easiest to perform, and most common Lyme test ordered. It is a preferred test by laboratories, not because it is more accurate than other Lyme tests, but because it is automated. Many different patient samples can be performed by a single machine simultaneously. This allows for a faster turnover, less costs, and theoretically, standardized test results that are consistent from lab to lab. There were almost equal numbers of false positives as false negatives.