Re-evaluation of chronic hepatitis C patients who showed viral relapse after interferon plus ribavirin therapy by COBAS AmpliPrep/ COBAS Taq Man HCV Test

Abstract

COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS Taq Man HCV Test is a new method to detect HCV RNA with higher sensitivity and broader range of quantitation (0.015∼69000 KIU/ml) than conventional methods (e.g., 0.05 KIU/mlfor Amplicore HCV v2.0 and 5∼5000 KIU/ml for COBAS Amplicor HCV Monitor v2.0). Using this new method, we re-evaluated 76 interferon/ribavirin-treated chronic hepatitis C patients who had shown an end-of-treatment response (ETR) when HCV RNA was measured previously by Amplicore HCV v2.0 Test. As a result, 8 patients (10.5%) were newly identified to be positive for HCV RNA. Thus, our present results suggest that COBAS AmpliPrep/COBAS Taq Man HCV Test is more preferable than conventional methods to determine ETR and of prognostic values as well.