U.S. health officials are growing concerned with the number of false results laboratories are giving when testing for the tick-borne Lyme disease.
Nationally, reported cases of Lyme disease have more than doubled in a decade, to at least 23,963 in 2003 from fewer than 9,000 in 1993.
But a growing number of patients and doctors are concerned two labs can often provide conflicting diagnoses, as happened with Steve Courcier, a 38-year-old Dallas resident. He was first tested at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., which ruled out Lyme, the New York Times said.
Then a Texas doctor sent his blood sample to a California laboratory that indicated he did have Lyme disease. But a New York specialist who tested his blood a third time, in June, said emphatically that he did not have the disease.
Now the New York State Department of Health has opened an investigation of the California laboratory after receiving eight complaints from doctors and patients who said its Lyme tests also gave them positive results not confirmed by other labs' results.
© Copyright 2005 by United Press International
