الفهرس 
Epidemiology of HCV InfectionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Summary
Summary
Summary
Egypt has a very high prevalence of HCV and a high morbidity and mortality from chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Children and young adults have relatively high prevalence of positive HCV Ab.
Two classes of assays are used in the diagnosis and management of HCV infection: serologic assays that detect specific antibody to hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) and molecular assays that detect viral nucleic acid.
To avoid the use of serum, which requires obtaining drawn blood, oral fluid collection has been evaluated as an alternative modality to screen populations for HCV.
In the current study, we evaluated the detection of HCV Abs in the oral fluid of 100 candidates, classified into 3 groups, by using ImmunoComb II kits. Comparison between the results of the studied 2 groups and the 3rd control group was carried out.
Careful history taking, thorough clinical examination and laboratory investigations including blood picture, liver & kidney function tests, investigations to exclude other causes of elevated liver enzymes rather than HCV like ANA, ASMA, AMA, HBs Ag, HBc Ab, etc were carried out. Abdominal ultrasonography was also done for the 2 studied groups.
HCV antibodies in oral fluid
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Summary
Oral fluid samples were collected from all the candidates in a clear container “cup”, samples are centrifuged and examined by ImmunoComb II kits for detection of HCV Abs.
It was found that the sensitivity of the test was 67.5 %, although the specificity was 100 %, Positive Predictive value was 100 %, Negative Predictive value was 82 %, and its diagnostic accuracy was 87%.
There are many studies evaluated the oral fluid before as a diagnostic tool for detection of HCV Abs, their results vary according to many factors like the used kits, concentration method, incubation period… etc.
The use of oral fluid as a diagnostic tool provides many advantages over traditional serum-based analyses. Rapid, noninvasive, no risks of needle exposure, collected by non medical personnel and considered as preferred method of testing for infants and young children.
A lot of modulations are needed to be studied to increase the specificity and sensitivity of the oral fluid tests for detection and screening of HCV Abs.