How long does it take for Hepatitis blood tests to come back with accurate results?

Question

My girlfriend has recently been taken into hospital and no-one knows what's wrong with her. The hospital took bloods to test for Hepatitis and came back within a week saying that she was clear, however I have heard from other sources (without any evidence yet) that it can take up to 2 months for the blood cultures to grow.

Can someone please answer with a link to a trusted source stating how long it should normally take?

Many thanks,

Pan

Answer 1

if your girlfriend was tested for hepatitis, and obviously she is very sick and the tests came back negative, then she does not have hepatitis. she probably got screened for everything as soon as she got admitted. sometimes people can be in sort of a "window period" of disease where things like hepatitis is still growing per say in the body and will not show up on the test because it has not yet caused enough damage. if doctors REALLY think their patient is positive, you are usually told to come back in 6 months to get re-tested.

testing for hepatitis is not done in blood cultures. blood cultures are for really sick people suspected of having bad bacteria in their blood. the bottles are normally kept for 5-7 days. if they flag as positive they are immediately taken out and the blood is put on growing media to better help the people in the lab identify what the bacteria is.

Answer 2

every blood test should be done within a week