QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS OF HEPATITIS-C VIRUS ACTIVITY IN-VIVO IN DIFFERENT GROUPS OF UNTREATED PATIENTS

Highly sensitive competitive PCR (cPCR) and competitive reverse transc ription PCR (cRT-PCR) methodologies were recently developed and applie d for quantifying viral DNA and RNA species (including HCV RNA) presen t in clinical samples at low concentration. In this study, we used cRT -PCR to compare the viral load of 118 untreated patients with HCV infe ction and different clinical conditions (80 patients with chronic hepa titis, 18 infected subjects with persistently normal ALT levels and va rious degrees of liver injury, 10 HCV infected subjects that tested po sitive for anti-LKM1 antibodies, and 10 patients with HCV infection an d cryoglobulinemia). The results indicate that while great individual variability of HCV viremia is detectable even among patients with simi lar clinical conditions, the mean HCV RNA copy number in samples from patients with different clinical conditions was similar in all groups with the single exception of patients that tested positive for anti-li ver-kidney microsomal auto-antibodies type 1 (anti-LKM1); interestingl y, lower HCV viremia levels were revealed in these anti-LKM1-positive cases with liver disease of uncertain pathogenesis.