Primary screening of blood donors by nat testing for HCV-RNA: development of an "in-house" method and results
Data(s) |
01/06/2007
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Resumo |
An "in-house" RT-PCR method was developed that allows the simultaneous detection of the RNA of the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and an artificial RNA employed as an external control. Samples were analyzed in pools of 6-12 donations, each donation included in two pools, one horizontal and one vertical, permitting the immediate identification of a reactive donation, obviating the need for pool dismembering. The whole process took 6-8 hours per day and results were issued in parallel to serology. The method was shown to detect all six HCV genotypes and a sensitivity of 500 IU/mL was achieved (95% hit rate). Until July 2005, 139,678 donations were tested and 315 (0.23%) were found reactive for HCV-RNA. Except for five false-positives, all 310 presented the corresponding antibody as well, so the yield of NAT-only donations was zero, presenting a specificity of 99.83%. Detection of a window period donation, in the population studied, will probably demand testing of a larger number of donations. International experience is showing a rate of 1:200,000 - 1:500,000 of isolated HCV-RNA reactive donations. |
Formato |
text/html |
Identificador |
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0036-46652007000300008 |
Idioma(s) |
en |
Publicador |
Instituto de Medicina Tropical |
Fonte |
Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo v.49 n.3 2007 |
Palavras-Chave | #Nucleic Acid Testing #Blood Donors #RT-PCR #Transfusional Risk #Hepatitis C Virus #HCV |
Tipo |
journal article |