Abstract

Objective: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an important public health problem due to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Serological and molecular methods are used in the diagnosis and follow-up of HCV infection. Our aim in this study is to evaluate the six-year HCV seroprevalence of our hospital and its correlation with HCV RNA.

Methods: The results of 193.332 samples sent to the our laboratory 01.01.2013-31.12.2018 with anti-HCV request and 8034 sample results from which HCV RNA requests were made were analyzed retrospectively. Anti-HCV was studied by chemiluminescance microparticle immunoassay (Abbott, US) at Architect i2000 immunoanalyzer (Abbott, US). The HCV RNA polymerase chain reaction test was studied by Roche COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS Taqman HCV quantitative test v2.0 (Roche, Swiss).

Results: A total of 193.332 serum samples from various clinics during a six years period were included in the study. 124.655 (64%) of these samples belonged to female patients and 68.677 (36%) belonged to male patients. 9.224 (5%) patients were 18 years and under, 28607 (15%) patients were 65 years and over. Of all incoming samples, 190.200 (98.4%) serum samples were found to be non-reactive. Anti-HCV reactive in total 3.132 (1.6%) serum samples. In 1.646 (52.5%) serum samples anti-HCV was found between 1.00-4.99 and weakly reactive, 1.486 (44.4%) serum samples were found to be higher than five and anti-HCV was evaluated as high reactive. HCV RNA was positive in 531 (7%) of anti-HCV reactive serum. 2.601 (32%) of the HCV RNA samples were negative. Anti-HCV non reactive and HCV RNA negative were found in 4.902 (61%) serum.

Conclusion: Anti-HCV is an easily applicable method in all laboratories. Confirmation should be demonstrated by testing HCV RNA, especially in patients with anti-HCV positivity at low titers.