ObGyn Intelligence: The Evidence of Women’s Health

ObGyn Intelligence: The Evidence of Women’s Health

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The Wrong Body, The Right Result for a Positive Pregnancy Test

Why a positive result in a non-pregnant body isn’t a lab error—it’s a biochemical alarm for occult malignancy and “phantom” hormones.

Amos Grünebaum, MD's avatar
Amos Grünebaum, MD
Feb 04, 2026
∙ Paid

When a biological male or a non-pregnant woman triggers a positive pregnancy test, it is rarely a “false” result—it is typically an accurate detection of a hormone that shouldn’t be there.

Circumstances where a home pregnancy test could be positive wiuth an actual pregnancy:

The hormone Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) is a powerful glycoprotein primarily associated with the syncytiotrophoblast cells of the placenta, but its presence is not exclusive to pregnancy.

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While we credit the placenta for hCG, the embryo actually begins broadcasting this signal just days after fertilization—even before it has fully nested in the womb. It is produced by the trophoblast, the specialized 'invasive' layer of cells that eventually builds the placenta. This is why tumors like choriocarcinomas are so good at triggering pregnancy tests—they are essentially cancers made of these same high-output trophoblast cells.

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