Abstract
An automated hepatitis C virus (HCV) antigen (Ag) assay was evaluated with clinical samples. Determination of HCV Ag and RNA levels in 282 subjects using Abbott HCV Ag and Roche Cobas TaqMan assays revealed that these two tests were highly correlated (r = 0.9464). Thus, the HCV Ag assay could be an alternative test to quantitative reverse transcription-PCR.
Highlights
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection usually causes a progressive disease that can result in chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma [12]
Diagnosis and monitoring of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are commonly based on anti-HCV assays, recombinant immunoblotting, and HCV RNA viral load in current clinical practices [13]
HCV core antigen (Ag) tests have been introduced to supplement anti-HCV tests or HCV quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) analyses over the last decade [1, 16], and these quantitative HCV Ag assays could be used for the monitoring of antiviral therapy as well as for diagnosis of HCV infection [3, 6]
Summary
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection usually causes a progressive disease that can result in chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma [12]. Determination of HCV Ag and RNA levels in 282 subjects using Abbott HCV Ag and Roche Cobas TaqMan assays revealed that these two tests were highly correlated (r ؍0.9464). Another group of 13 cases with HCV RNA levels below 15 IU/ml were all nonreactive for HCV Ag. The qualitative results determined by HCV Ag and HCV RNA assays showed an agreement of 94.0%.
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