Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Sweat test

I am an 49 year old female with extended family history of severe asthma, allergies, some CF. I have diagnosis of common variable immune deficency, severe asthma, bronchiectasis, 10 sinus surgeries, 5 on the frontal alone...all to clean out polyps. Have malabsorption and arthritis. I have been on oral Prendisone for 10 years along with many other breathing medications. Do long term steroids (Prednisone) affect swest tests? My sweat test is negative, dna analysis only shows 1 CF gene. Does anyone care to share any info about if long term Prednisone can affect sweat tests?

4 comments - CLICK HERE to read & add your own!:

Baleeiro said...

I don't know of data on that. The gene analysis is encouraging though.

Baleeiro said...

I found this statement on UpToDate though no reference: "Another problem [with sweat chloride test]is that hypoproteinemic edema and concurrent administration of steroids can lead to a false decrease in the sweat chloride concentration."

Baleeiro said...

How many times have you had a sweat chloride test and was it done at a national well-established center with CF experience?

Baleeiro said...

One more suggestion is to test nasal potential difference since there are rare cases of CF with negative sweat test and the commercial CF gene analysis will identify about 93% of patients with CF but may miss very rare alleles.