QUANTITATIVE-EVALUATION OF HEPATITIS-C VIRUS-RNA IN PATIENTS WITH CONCURRENT HUMAN-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-VIRUS INFECTIONS

Quantitation of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) provides a powerful epidem iologic and therapeutic method for the evaluation of infected patients . In this study semiquantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chai n reaction (PCR) is compared with a new branched DNA signal amplificat ion methodology. Samples from HCV-infected patients as well as from hu man immunodeficiency virus-infected patients were evaluated. Reverse t ranscriptase PCR correlated well with the branched DNA assay (r = 0.70 36, P < 0.05). HCV RNA was found to occur at significantly higher tite rs (P < 0.05) in patients coinfected with the human immunodeficiency v irus compared with titers in those infected with HCV alone. Immune sta tus as defined by the CD4+ count was not associated with the observed difference in viral titer.