IS HCV Core Antigen a Reliable Marker of Viral Load in Hpatitis C Virus Infection in Egyptian Patient?

Abstract

T he severity of disease varies widely from mild illness to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Approximately one half of patients with symptomatic acute infection have detectable antibodies to HCV detected by ELISA when they first present for care. However, the development of HCV antibodies may be delayed in patients who have subclinical infection. A positive anti-HCV ELISA does not distinguish between those who cleared the infection and those who are chronically infected. Detection of HCV RNA by nucleic acid amplification techniques (NAT) is expensive, time consuming, requires technical expertise and dedicated laboratory area. These reasons restrict the availability or wide scale usage of HCV RNA detection in many laboratories of developing countries. HCV-core-antigen (HCV-core-Ag) might be an alternative to PCR, with several possible advantages compared to HCV RNA quantification. The HCV-core-Ag assay is cheaper and can be more rapidly performed (<60 min). Also, the Ag assay has been shown to have a good correlation with the HCV PCR. The aim of our study was to determine whether hepatitis c virus core antigen a reliable marker of viral load in hepatitis c virus in Egyptian patient.