Description
This article is from the Feline
Leukemia (Cats) FAQ, posted to rec.pets.cats newsgroup.
Maintained by Erin Miller with numerous contributions by
others.
019. Is it possible for a cat to test negative when it really is positive?
Unfortunately, yes. Although false negatives are not very common, they
do occur, especially if you are dealing with a young kitten.
Sometimes the cat has been recently exposed to FeLV, so the
antibodies have not yet had enough time to build up enough of a
response to appear on the test. To be absolutely sure a cat is not
FeLV+ you should test it twice, a few weeks apart (the cat should
remain isolated from other cats during this period, too, otherwise
there is little point in doing a second test). The likelihood of
getting a false negative is increased depending on the nature of
the test. The ELISA test will show more false negatives than the
IFA test. Some mail-order catalogues now offer FeLV testing kits
using saliva or tears as the medium. These are more likely to
trigger a false response than the ELISA test which uses blood.
Fortunately, the false negative rate on the ELISA test (which is
what most vet offices use for standard FeLV tests) is low enough
that most people don't bother with the second test.
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Tags
feline leukemia, cat, kitten, positive, felv
