Hepatitis C virus and newest line of treatment and vaccination

      Enzyme immunoassay (screening)

–       EIA 1 -  80% sensitivity, but a high false positive rate (50 to 70%)

–       EIA 2 -  95% sensitivity, 40-50% false positive rate

–       EIA 3 - test of choice to screen blood products; similar sensitivity and specificity of EIA 2

      HCV RNA

–       PCR or branched DNA techniques

–       Confirming diagnosis and assessing response to IFN tx

–       90 patients who were hepatitis C positive

–       Aminotransferase levels and liver histology

–       Aminotransferase levels were not correlated with histological findings (i.e inflammation and fibrosis)

–       > 10x elevations (ALT>350) is suggestive of piecemeal necrosis