Lab Testing

**Note: All laboratory testing requires an authorizing physician. DHA Laboratory offers a patient direct program that partners you with an authorizing physician. If you have any additional questions regarding the availability of testing, please contact our laboratory by telephone or email.**

The ASO test is primarily used to help determine whether a recent strep infection with group A Streptococcus:

• Is the cause of a person’s or glomerulonephritis, a form of kidney disease
• Caused rheumatic fever in a person with signs and symptoms

The test may be ordered by itself or along with an anti-DNase B, another test used to detect recent strep infections.

In most cases, strep infections are identified and treated with antibiotics and the infections resolve. In cases where they do not cause identifiable symptoms and/or go untreated, however, complications (sequelae), namely rheumatic fever and glomerulonephritis, can develop in some people, especially young children. The test, therefore, is ordered if a person presents with symptoms suggesting rheumatic fever or glomerulonephritis and has had a recent history of sore throat or a confirmed streptococcal infection.