VIREMIA IN CHRONIC HEPATITIS-C PATIENTS EVALUATED BY THE AMPLICOR RT-PCR, A NESTED RT-PCR, AND TRANSAMINASE LEVELS

A commercially available kit, Amplicor(R), was compared with a locally developed nested reverse-transcriptase (RT) PCR for qualitative detec tion of HCV-RNA. Sixty-one serum samples from sixty-one patients with liver disease, and 60 samples from 60 hemophiliacs without symptoms, b ut known to have been heavily exposed to hepatitis C virus, were inves tigated. There was a high degree of concordance between the two diagno stic tests (97%), the Amplicor(R) kit being slightly more sensitive th an the in-house PCR, when evaluated using serial dilutions of samples showing discrepant results. The relationship between viremia and abnor mal ALT levels was studied in the two groups of patients. Among those with chronic liver disease, 8.3% of patients with viremia had normal A LT levels, whereas transaminases were normal in 20% of hemophiliacs wi th viremia. This points to ALT as being a poor marker of ongoing viral replication.