[16147186]
The pt's heart biopsy specimen was sent for viral culture. It was noted to be positive for virus eleven days later. (cmv was already ruled out). It was stained with the pan-enterovirus blend reagent, mfg by chemicon int'l, which appeared strongly positive. The result was reported to the physician. Later, upon review of the work-up of this culture, it was noted that all 3 passage tubes were positive for virus. This did not fit with an enterovirus result. Further work with the virus revealed a herpes simplex virus type 1. This was determined on 5/2002. The pt had subsequently been taking a drug for enterovirus, based on the first result. The technical svc for chemicon was called on 5/2002, where they informed rptr that they had one of two bad lot numbers that could give a false positive. They said they had determined that the reagent had too high of a titer of the antibody. Had received no notification that their reagent was one of the bad lot numbers (lot # 21110399). Not until 6/2002 was an urgent notice sent with new reagent to say rptr's reagent was giving "higher than expected background reactivity on certain samples".
Patient Sequence No: 1, Text Type: D, B5