ANTI-HBC ASSAYS - EVALUATION OF END-POINT SENSITIVITY AND PERFORMANCE

The performance characteristics of eight commercially available anti-H Bc assays-seven ELISAs and a modified haemagglutination assay-were ass essed using an eight-sample panel of sera collected from blood donors representing a cross-section of anti-HBc-positive donors that might be expected to be encountered in the course of routine screening of bloo d donations. Endpoint sensitivity was investigated with a view to choo sing one anti-HBc ELISA for use in a second phase routine donor screen ing study in parallel with the modified haemagglutination test. The ch osen anti-HBc ELISA had to be of an acceptable sensitivity level in co mparison with all the other ELISAs investigated, and the ease of use a nd overall test time had to be taken into account. With a view to this , although the Murex assay was by far the most sensitive, the test tim e with the protocol available at the time was too long and therefore t he Biokit ELISA was chosen for the second phase.