Page 30 - The Flying Publisher Guide to Hepatitis C Treatment

30 | Hepatitis C Treatment

2. Patients’ monitoring during and after

treatment

Simona Ruta and Costin Cernescu

Basic knowledge

Hepatitis C may be clinically silent for years and many people
have been infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) for decades
without knowing it. Effective screening should focus on
populations at-risk for HCV infection. Hepatitis C is diagnosed by
simple blood tests (Dufour 2000) (Table 2.1):
Detection of HCV antibodies is done by enzyme immunoassay
(screening tests) and immunoblot (confirmation tests). A new
HCV rapid test device (OraQuick® HCV Rapid Antibody Test), was
approved recently in Europe for use with venous or fingerstick
blood, serum, plasma or oral fluid (Lee 2011). This may help
address the problem of under-diagnosis, by increasing testing
outside of traditional clinical settings. However, all these
techniques have a window-period limitation (due to the late
seroconversion), which can last 70-82 days, considerably
reducing their usefulness in the diagnosis of acute HCV
infection. Testing for anti-HCV may be performed at 18 months
of age or older (before this age there is a high rate of false