Determination of Antibodies to Hepatitis C Virus: Elisa Method

Hepatitis C is a socially significant disease, often occurring in a chronic low-symptom form. Despite the decrease in HCV incidence in the eastern regions of Russia, the healthcare strategy is still aimed at timely detection of the inection in all social and age groups of the population. Laboratory research methods provide significant assistance in diagnosing acute and chronic forms of the disease. In most cases, detection of total anti-HCV antibodies is used for screening. The main results of screening studies give 100% coincidence when using reagents from different manufacturers,as well as coincidence in the system of interlaboratory comparative tests of the ASNP CEQ CCRL. If a positive test result is obtained, the result obtained requires confirmation. In our study, as a result of screening of total antibodies to HCV, 91 serum samples were selected to confirm the infection, which amounted to 4.84% of all tested samples. Sera in confirmatory tests were also tested using test systems from two manufacturers. The samples were divided into two groups: with high and low anti-HCV antibodies. The first group of samples, with a high antibody content, demonstrated complete agreement with the results of confirmatory tests. When studying samples with low OD in confirmatory tests, indefinite results were obtained in 11-20% of cases. The difference was also obtained in the results of detection of anti-cor antibodies. Obtaining indefinite results in a small number of cases is the most painful point of ELISA and the reasons for this are still debatable, since attempts to improve the algorithms for determining and the reference limit are limited by the capabilities of the indirect ELISA method. Laboratory detection of total antibodies to HCV by the ELISA method is a screening test, in case of questionable or positive results of which it is recommended to use other laboratory methods - PCR diagnostics, detection of core-antigen, which is regulated by current clinical guidelines.