الفهرس 
Introduction and Aim of the workOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
HCV infection is considered a national progressing problem that threatens the life of Egyptian people as Egypt has the highest prevalence of HCV infection in the world with prevalence rates of 14.7% of the adult population. HCV infection causes chronic hepatic inflammation and severe liver diseases, such as liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The virological diagnosis and monitoring of HCV infection is based on the use of a variety of virological markers. Four HCV markers can be used in clinical practice, including total anti-HCV antibodies, the HCV-RNA level, the HCV genotype, and recently the HCV core antigen level. Total serum HCV core antigen which is considered a surrogate marker of HCV replication can be detected on average 1 to 2 days after HCV-RNA during the preseroconversion period. Compared with RT-PCR for the detection of HCV-RNA, detection of HCVcAg may be a cost effective, alternative that does not require specialized equipment and/or expertise to perform and not time consuming.
The aim of the present study was to evaluate the role of HCV core Ag assay in screening of blood donors for early detection of HCV infection.
In this study, serum samples were collected from blood donors attended to blood bank, Minia University hospital in the period from April 2015 to October 2015. Demographic data of cases including name, age, gender and residence were collected. All sera were tested for HCV core antigen level. Serum samples were tested for other biomarkers including HCV antibodies, complete blood count, random blood sugar, renal and liver functions and PCR for HCV was done to randomly selected 30 samples.
The study included subjects with an age ranged from eighteen to fifty years. The subjects included 171 males (91.9%) and 15 females (8.1%) and 84 subjects (45.2%) from urban areas and 102 (54.8%) from rural areas. The study included 186 subjects, all were negative for HCV Ab. by ELISA. HCV core antigen content ranged from 2.00 to 59.5 ng/ml among all subjects with a mean and SD of (5.16±7.58) ng/ml. HCV core antigen test sensitivity and specificity were 85.7% and 95.6% respectively. Positive and negative predictive values were 85.7 % and 95.6 %, respectively and accuracy of the test was 93.3 %.
We concluded that HCV core antigen EIA test has a high sensitivity and specificity and can be a reliable method for detecting active HCV infection and can be used in blood banks for detection of early HCV infection in preseroconversion period.