Evaluation of Western Blot in Routine Diagnosis of Hepatitis C Virus

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is among the major causes of parenterally transmitted hepatitis. Detection of infected persons would greatly diminish transmission rates and is therefore a significant parameter for prevention. Current assays are not able to resolve all cases and sometimes the results are controversial. The present study outlines problems that arise during routine testing. Two ELISA tests and three confirmatory tests were used and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) data were available for some of the samples. The results of this study show that only 77.4% of samples positive for both ELISAs were confirmed as being positive. Controversial ELISA results remained controversial, depending on the confirmatory test used. PCR results, though not complete, point to the major problem of Western blot (WB) negative sera that prove positive for the viral genome and have to be excluded from screening for blood and organ donation. Since PCR cannot be used as a routine screening procedure, improvement of the routine assays is needed to minimize ambiguous results.