Assessment of Two Quantitative Techniques for Hepatitis C Viraemia

Abstract

Quantification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) serum viraemia level is an important measure to predict and monitor response to interferon-alpha therapy as well as to predict clinical outcome. We were interested to compare the most widely used HCV quantification methods in Egypt, quantitative PCR and the branched DNA (bDNA) methods, with respect to sensitivity and reliability in Egyptian patients. RESULTS: In the present st ud y, 40 serum samples from patients chronically infected with HCV were simultaneously quantified by PCR Amplicor assay a nd the branched DNA Quantiplex HCV RNA kits 2.0. The concentration of HCV RNA copy/ml serum ranged from less than 1x103 to 3.48xl05 as assessed by HCV quantitati ve Amplicor PCR, while the concentration ranged from less than 0.2 to 37.12 Meq/ml by bDNA assay. Measurements by Amplicor PCR and bDNA 2.0 were concorda-nt. CONCLUSION: There was no relationtionship between l i ver enzymes and the viral load measured by the two quantitative techniques but, there was a sufficient agreement in measurements between Amplicor PCR and bDNA of HCV RNA concentrations. It is recommended that samples with results less than detection limit of the kit in both techniques to be repeated once again using HCV-RNA qualitative. This is because the qualitative techninique is highly sensitive in detecting viral loads that may reach 100 copies/ml, which cannot be detected by either technique.