Get STD tested: Click and pick site nearest you

Did you sleep with someone you shouldn't have last weekend?

For people who are worried about sexually transmitted diseases, a new service called SxCheck.com offers a confidential online testing service, though it comes with a hefty price tag, and some aren't sure that it's a real substitute for more standard ways of getting tested.

Through the Web site, users can order tests online, get tested at a local "draw station" and access their results online or over the phone two to four days later.

Tests range from $49.95 for HIV alone up to an "everything panel" bundle, which costs $479.95. Draw stations include all Lab Corp. facilities, which are located across the country.

But Abike James, a professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said the service may not be that appealing, given the price and impersonal experience provided by the site.

"These [SxCheck] tests are expensive," she said. "Most people cannot afford $500."

Nevertheless, SxCheck CEO Doug Wightman said the site has seen high demand for its service, especially from young people.

"We have received strong interest from a wide variety of individuals - college students, swingers and the general population at large," Wightman said.

Wightman said that the price is fair given the rapid response that clients receive. Some tests taken at Penn's Student Health Service come back in a day, but others take up to a week or more, Student Health Director Evelyn Wiener said.

But experts' concerns do not just involve the money or time involved.

James added that when she performs STD tests, there are counseling sessions both before and after the test to prepare patients for the possibility of bad news.

"You want to make sure that they know, if they are positive, that there are systems put in place," she said. "I can't imagine what it would be like if it was just from a Web site."

SHS ensures that students receive necessary after testing positively for an STD, Wiener said.

"We provide treatment and follow-up for any positive test results," she added. "We will also treat their partners."

She added that sometimes an STD cannot be diagnosed by a test alone.

"The face-to-face contact with a clinician is necessary to interpret the possibility of infection and the significance of various symptoms," Wiener said.

SxCheck is not the first Web site to offer opportunities for STD testing.

Iwantthekit.org, a non-profit program sponsored by Johns Hopkins University, offers free chlamydia testing through a kit that patients order through the mail. The kit is used at home and is mailed back to the university, which processes the kit and sends back test results.

Some students and experts, however, say they would be concerned about the reliability of tests performed by mail.

"I'd feel more safe and confidential" at a doctor's office, College freshman Emily Szelest said. "I would be doubtful of a result coming over e-mail."

Wightman is adamant that his site keeps high standards of confidentiality.

"We do not, and will not, maintain statistics on our clients," he said.

Aside from Student Health and the Internet, other options are available to most U.S. residents looking for STD testing in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Health Center #1, located at 14th and Lombard streets, offers walk-in appointments for STD tests every weekday.

College students in particular are a needy audience for sexual safety and testing.

"There are some studies that show about 50 percent of college students have acquired HPV, and that's just one of the viruses," James said, referring to a common STD that is linked to cervical cancer in women.

Similarly, research from the Emory School of Medicine found that nearly 10 percent of all students were infected with chlamydia. Freshmen were 70 percent more likely than that to contract it.

To deal with these rising concerns, Wightman said the site has more planned.

"Stay tuned," he said. "This is only the beginning."

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