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Dear colleagues,
Here is an interesting case. Any suggestions please?
21-yrs old patient was diagnosed with ectopic pregnancy and got surgery done on Oct.25. Pathological examination indicated a small focus of unremarkable implantation site to fallopian tube and no chorionic villi. beta-hCG level has been monitored and shown as following:
Nov. 1/07 32 IU/L
Nov.13/07 2
Jan.10/08 14
Jan.14/08 19
Jan.20/08 16
Jan.31/08 8
The reference range of beta-hCG for non-pregnancy women is <5 IU/L. To rule out false positive hCG, The serum specimen of Jan.31 was done on both Architect and Roche analyzers and the result was 8.16 and 8.79 respectively. Random urine hCG on Jan 31was also performed and the result was <1.2 IU/L (undetectable).
How do we interpret these hCG results? Are these hCG results false positive (Jan10-Jan 31)? Is tumor considered for this patient? Are there any suggestions for further investigation?
Dr. Amy Lou
Clinical Chemist
Department of Laboratory Medicine
Charllottetown, PE. Canada