What Does a Positive Cold Agglutinin Test Mean

A positive titer may mean that the person tested has cold agglutinin disease. Cold agglutinin disease may be primary or secondary, induced by some other disease or condition such as: Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections—up to 75% of those affected will have increased cold agglutinins.

What diseases can cause cold agglutinins?

• Bacterial Infections such as mycoplasma, Legionnaires’ disease, syphilis, listeriosis, or E. …
• Viral infections such Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, mumps, varicella, rubella, adenovirus, HIV, influenza, or hepatitis C.

How is cold agglutinin disease diagnosed?

If a complete blood count shows signs of CAD, another kind of blood test will look for a higher-than-normal number of cold agglutninins, the antibodies that kill red blood cells. This is called a direct antiglobulin test or a Coombs test.