Abstract
BackgroundThe World Health Organization (WHO) has targeted a reduction in viral hepatitis-related mortality by 65% and incidence by 90% by 2030, necessitating enhanced hepatitis B treatment and prevention programmes in low- and middle-income countries. Hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) status is used in the assessment of eligibility for antiviral treatment and for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). Accordingly, the WHO has classified HBeAg rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) as essential medical devices.MethodsWe assessed the performance characteristics of three commercially available HBeAg RDTs (SD Bioline, Alere, South Africa; Creative Diagnostics, USA; and Biopanda Reagents, UK) in two hepatitis B surface antigen-positive cohorts in Blantyre, Malawi: participants of a community study (n = 100) and hospitalised patients with cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma (n = 94). Two investigators, blinded to the reference test result, independently assessed each assay. We used an enzyme-linked immunoassay (Monolisa HBeAg, Bio-Rad, France) as a reference test and quantified HBeAg concentration using dilutions of the WHO HBeAg standard. We related the findings to HBV DNA levels, and evaluated treatment eligibility using the TREAT-B score.ResultsAmong 194 HBsAg positive patients, median age was 37 years, 42% were femaleand 26% were HIV co-infected. HBeAg prevalence was 47/194 (24%). The three RDTs showed diagnostic sensitivity of 28% (95% CI 16–43), 53% (38–68) and 72% (57–84) and specificity of 96–100% for detection of HBeAg. Overall inter-rater agreement κ statistic was high at 0.9–1.0. Sensitivity for identifying patients at the threshold where antiviral treatment is recommended for PMTCT, with HBV DNA > 200,000 IU/ml (39/194; 20%), was 22, 49 and 54% respectively. Using the RDTs in place of the reference HBeAg assay resulted in 3/43 (9%), 5/43 (12%) and 8/43 (19%) of patients meeting the TREAT-B treatment criteria being misclassified as ineligible for treatment. A relationship between HBeAg concentration and HBeAg detection by RDT was observed. A minimum HBeAg concentration of 2.2–3.1 log10IU/ml was required to yield a reactive RDT.ConclusionsCommercially available HBeAg RDTs lack sufficient sensitivity to accurately classify hepatitis B patients in Malawi. This has implications for hepatitis B public health programs in sub-Saharan Africa. Alternative diagnostic assays are recommended.
Highlights
The World Health Organization (WHO) has targeted a reduction in viral hepatitis-related mortality by 65% and incidence by 90% by 2030, necessitating enhanced hepatitis B treatment and prevention programmes in low- and middle-income countries
Description of study participants We evaluated 194 hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive participants, comprising 100 individuals who tested HBsAg positive within a community serosurvey study and 94 hospitalised patients with cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (Fig. 1 for study recruitment flowchart)
We found that commercially available Hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) Rapid diagnostic test (RDT) have poor sensitivity in HBsAg positive populations in Malawi when compared to a reference enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test
Summary
The World Health Organization (WHO) has targeted a reduction in viral hepatitis-related mortality by 65% and incidence by 90% by 2030, necessitating enhanced hepatitis B treatment and prevention programmes in low- and middle-income countries. Hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) status is used in the assessment of eligibility for antiviral treatment and for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). The World Health Assembly recently adopted targets to tackle viral hepatitis including a 65% reduction in mortality by 2030 [2]. Meeting this goal will necessitate an ambitious increase in HBV screening and treatment activities. In settings where HBV DNA quantification is unavailable, HBeAg may be used to select which pregnant patients will require antiviral therapy to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), as a surrogate marker of high HBV DNA concentration, and has been recommended in recent WHO guidelines, it is an imperfect correlate [11,12,13]
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