Portal:Medicine/Selected article/49, 2007



A pregnancy test is a test to determine whether or not a woman is pregnant.

The earliest test for pregnancy is a rosette inhibition assay for early pregnancy factor (EPF). EPF can be detected in blood within 48 hours of fertilization. However, testing for EPF is expensive and time consuming.

Most chemical tests for pregnancy look for the presence of the beta subunit of hCG or human chorionic gonadotropin in the blood or urine. hCG can be detected in urine or blood after implantation, which occurs six to twelve days after fertilization.

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