Author Topic: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points  (Read 7888 times)

Offline Dan

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Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« on: July 14, 2021, 11:03:36 AM »
Labcorp test 164090 is a Roche quantitative ECLIA spike antibody test that can check for COVID antibodies from infection or vaccination with 100% Specificity. My high deductible insurance covered it in full. Anything above 0.7 is considered positive.

I had COVID (undiagnosed, with symptoms but with no loss of smell/taste) in February 2020. In January 2021 I got this test and my numbers were 192.6. I got vaccinated in March, but didn't retest afterward.

My father had the test done before his vaccine and was 0. He got tested again 2 weeks after his 2nd Pfizer shot. At the time the top number of the test was 250 and he tested greater than 250.

My 10 year old Rafi had COVID (diagnosed, with symptoms but with no loss of smell/taste) in November 2020. In July 2021 he got tested and his numbers were 478.4. Apparently the upper range of the test has gone up.

Post your own DPs if you took this titer.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2021, 10:21:46 PM by Dan »
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Offline noturbizniss

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2021, 05:02:27 AM »
Do you need a doctor to order it?
READ THE DARN WIKI!!!!

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Offline Dan

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2021, 09:22:43 AM »
Do you need a doctor to order it?
There's a $10 fee if you don't have an RX for it.
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Offline Shmulie

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2021, 10:45:16 AM »

For reference I tested positive for Covid about a week after purim 2020, so this is after a year



Offline Dan

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2021, 11:02:10 AM »

Seems like they must have raised the upper limit sometime recently.
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Offline Zalc

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2021, 01:37:32 AM »
I got it in March 2020 and took this test last week.
I still have a healthy amount of antibodies (160.9).
OTOH, my wife who was also getting sick back then has no trace of antibodies at all, so certain destinations are still off limits

Offline Bookish

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #6 on: August 02, 2021, 05:49:48 PM »
My family had covid in November.  2 of my kids had this test in July.  The one who had confirmed covid had 594. The child who repeatedly tested negative for covid and antibodies even though every one else got it had 1. So 1 child has 594, one has 1, and both are considered positive!  I'm scratching my head.

Offline Dan

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #7 on: August 02, 2021, 05:53:27 PM »
My family had covid in November.  2 of my kids had this test in July.  The one who had confirmed covid had 594. The child who repeatedly tested negative for covid and antibodies even though every one else got it had 1. So 1 child has 594, one has 1, and both are considered positive!  I'm scratching my head.
@biobook thoughts?
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Offline HowYaDoin

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #8 on: August 02, 2021, 06:04:57 PM »
My 10 year old Rafi

Is he really 10 already... Wow!

Offline Dan

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #9 on: August 02, 2021, 06:09:09 PM »
Is he really 10 already... Wow!
I know, right?
Spending his first summer at sleepaway camp!
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Offline TimT

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #10 on: August 02, 2021, 06:10:34 PM »
I know, right?
Spending his first summer at sleepaway camp!
Nice. Next stop bar mitzva, & then comes the shidduchim.

Offline AsherO

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #11 on: August 02, 2021, 07:00:13 PM »
Nice. Next stop bar mitzva, & then comes the shidduchim.

With stops so far apart, this sounds like the express route.
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Offline TimT

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #12 on: August 02, 2021, 07:08:09 PM »
With stops so far apart, this sounds like the express route.
It flies by, whether you’re having fun or not.

Offline biobook

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #13 on: August 02, 2021, 09:24:30 PM »
My family had covid in November.  2 of my kids had this test in July.  The one who had confirmed covid had 594. The child who repeatedly tested negative for covid and antibodies even though every one else got it had 1. So 1 child has 594, one has 1, and both are considered positive!  I'm scratching my head.
The test gives 0.8 as the cutoff, so anything higher than that is considered positive.  The child with 594 has more antibodies than the other child, but it's not known what these numbers mean with regard to immunity.

The earliest tests were considered qualitative, giving just a yes/no answer.  What we all want is a quantitative test, where results above a certain threshold would mean that your antibodies are high enough to make you immune.  But we don't know yet what that threshold is, so this test is in-between those two types, and considered semi-quantitative.  A high number corresponds to more antibodies than a low number, but nothing more exact can be said.

These tests aren't meant to be used by individuals to determine their immune status, but are most useful for researchers.  Here's Roche's explanation of the different sorts of tests:
https://diagnostics.roche.com/us/en/roche-blog/qualitative-vs-quantitative-antibody-tests-whats-the-difference.html

Offline Bookish

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #14 on: August 03, 2021, 01:19:47 AM »
I'm curious how the tests compare to each other. Because the child with 594 had 123 in January on the test where over 15 is positive.  So did the antibodies go up or down?

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #15 on: August 03, 2021, 08:44:12 AM »
I'm curious how the tests compare to each other. Because the child with 594 had 123 in January on the test where over 15 is positive.  So did the antibodies go up or down?
Was it the same test?
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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #16 on: August 03, 2021, 08:45:24 AM »
The test gives 0.8 as the cutoff, so anything higher than that is considered positive.  The child with 594 has more antibodies than the other child, but it's not known what these numbers mean with regard to immunity.

The earliest tests were considered qualitative, giving just a yes/no answer.  What we all want is a quantitative test, where results above a certain threshold would mean that your antibodies are high enough to make you immune.  But we don't know yet what that threshold is, so this test is in-between those two types, and considered semi-quantitative.  A high number corresponds to more antibodies than a low number, but nothing more exact can be said.

These tests aren't meant to be used by individuals to determine their immune status, but are most useful for researchers.  Here's Roche's explanation of the different sorts of tests:
https://diagnostics.roche.com/us/en/roche-blog/qualitative-vs-quantitative-antibody-tests-whats-the-difference.html
Could the child with a 1 on the antibody test have had such a mild case of COVID that the PCR also came up negative at the time, despite having a very mild COVID?
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Offline AsherO

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2021, 08:53:43 AM »
I'm curious how the tests compare to each other. Because the child with 594 had 123 in January on the test where over 15 is positive.  So did the antibodies go up or down?

Are you sure all of these are the same test? The ranges/threshold varies greatly between tests and doesn’t necessarily correlate the way you might expect.
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Offline biobook

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #18 on: August 03, 2021, 11:15:10 AM »
I'm curious how the tests compare to each other. Because the child with 594 had 123 in January on the test where over 15 is positive.  So did the antibodies go up or down?
For the Jan test, the threshold for positive was 15, and for the June test it was 0.8, so these are apparently different tests, produced by different manufacturers, using different scales. 

Imagine you found one of those old fashioned thermometers with a glass tube containing mercury, attached to a piece of plastic, but it's so old that the numbers and scale printed on the plastic have been rubbed off.  The mercury still rises with increases in temperature, so you can see that it's  warmer today than yesterday, but you don't know the exact temperature.  You lose that thermometer, but soon find another with the same problem.  Again, it can show relative changes in temperature over time, but you can't compare these values with those measured on the first thermometer because they may be using different scales, with different minimum and maximum and a different spread of the scale.  To make these thermometers useful, you could make a series of cups of water of known increasing temperature, place the thermometer in each one and re-create the scale on the thermometer. 

That's where we stand with the antibody tests.  We know that there's some internal validity, that is, 500 on one test means more antibodies than 100 on the same test, but we don't know how that compares to another test.  Scientists are trying to standardize the tests, but AFAIK they're not there yet.  I found one preprint from March 2021
Anti-Spike protein assays to determine post-vaccination antibody levels: a head-to-head comparison of five quantitative assays
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.05.21252977v1
that concluded "Although all assays evaluated showed good correlation, readings from different assays were not interchangeable, even when converted to BAU/mL using the WHO international standard for SARS-CoV-2 immunoglobulin. This highlights the need for further standardization of SARS-CoV-2 serology."

So we can't really convert from one test to another yet.  If you knew the brand of the first test, you might be able to find out the range that was found in general (that is, did go from 15 to 130, or from 15 to 1000), and get a sense of whether 123 in the high or low part of the range.  And then do the same for the current test.  But as you can see this would just give you an approximate comparison between the two values. 

You want to know Did the antibodies go up or down?  That we can probably answer from knowing how antibodies change in general.  After an infection, it can take a few weeks for antibodies to reach a high level, where they remain for a while.  After the infection is gone, it would be a waste of energy to continue to make so much of an unneeded molecule, and the antibody level gradually decreases.  So after an infection in November, you'd expect high levels in January, which then decrease somewhat by June.  But even though antibodies in the blood decrease, the cells that make those antibodies remain, and they can quickly ramp up production of antibodies when again exposed to the virus.  It is possible that the child was exposed to the virus again, and had no observable symptoms, but did give the immune cells a boost to stimulate their antibody production a bit. 

So now my question to you, @Bookish :  Why are you so interested in the antibody level?

Offline biobook

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Re: Labcorp/Roche Quantitative Antibody Data Points
« Reply #19 on: August 03, 2021, 11:24:11 AM »
Could the child with a 1 on the antibody test have had such a mild case of COVID that the PCR also came up negative at the time, despite having a very mild COVID?
That seems like one possibility.  Also possible that that child was the first to get covid, was asymptomatic so not noticed, and then by the time the rest of the family got sick, the child's PCR was negative. Or could be a problem with the testing, and that a re-test would come out negative.