Posted by Sebastiaan Overeem on February 23, 2000 at 07:46:18:

In Reply to: HLA-DR2 Antigen Test (Narcolepsy) posted by John D. Lyle on February 22, 2000 at 07:26:55:

John,

Indeed, about 20-25% of the general population
carry the DR2 antigen, so being positive for
DR2 certainly doesn't mean that you have
narcolepsy. And with a general prevalence of
5 in 10000 in the Western population, with
someone testing DR2 positive, chances of having
narcolepsy is still 1 in 400, I think....
Far more important is the test's specificity. in
the western population, >90% of narcoleptics carry
the DR2 antigen. that means that in a case where
the diagnosis narcolepsy is doubted, a negative
test for DR2 more or less rules out the diagnosis.
(Positive testing doesn't help in this case)

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