ANTI-HEPATITIS-C VIRUS SEROLOGY IN PATIENTS AFFECTED WITH CONGENITAL COAGULATION DEFECTS - A COMPARATIVE-STUDY USING 3 2ND-GENERATION ELISATESTS

We determined the prevalence of anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibodie s in 34 patients affected with congenital coagulation disorders attend ing the Haemophilia Centre of Padua, Italy. Serological tests were car ried out by three second generation enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), two based on recombinant proteins (Ortho and Abbott) and one based on synthetic peptides (Behring) as antigenic substrate. The rep eatedly reactive specimens were further assayed by the supplemental 4- antigen recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) (Chiron and Ortho). Moreov er, we performed the dot-blot Matrix test (Abbott) on the samples show ing discrepant results by the three ELISA tests. Twenty-six patients ( 76.5%) were anti-HCV positive using all three ELISA tests; 25 were con firmed by the supplemental RIBA test, the other one was indeterminate. Two samples were in a gray-zone only using the anti-HCV ELISA Abbott. These were positive by the RIBA; in contrast, such samples showed no reactivity with the Matrix test. In accordance with the current litera ture, these data show an equivalence between the 2nd generation screen ing tests (ELISA), at least when applied to a high risk population as in the present study. Further, these screening tests demonstrated a re liable specificity, since most of the ELISA-reactive specimens were co nfirmed by the supplemental RIBA test. In contrast, combined use of th e anti-HCV tests could be useful when high sensitivity is requested, a s in the case of blood donor pretransfusion screening.