Cihan University-Erbil Conferences, 3rd International Conference on Biological & Health Sciences (CIC-BIOHS’19), joint with Hawler Medical University

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Significance of HBV Diagnosis by RT-PCR over Serological Markers in HBV Patients
Amer Ali Khaleel

Last modified: 2019-04-22

Abstract


Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the leading cause of viral hepatitis, as currently over two billion people have HBV infection worldwide. Nucleic acid assay and quantitative hepatitis B surface antigen have been developed for diagnostic and therapeutic monitoring of patients with HBV infection. These tests might also show correlation between HBV DNA and HBs serostatus. The study aimed to find and analyse the frequency and impact of HBsAg seropositivity among patients revealed HBV DNA negative level via quantitative estimation of both seromarkers.  RT-PCR and Elecsys assays were used for quantitative estimation of HBV-DNA and HBs antigen respectively. A total of 256 blood samples were used from patients referred for either diagnostic purpose and/or HBV viral load monitoring after anti-viral therapy. Blood profile analysis showed 12.26% HBs antigen seropositivity among patients revealed negative for nucleic acid assay for HBV-DNA. Positive HBs antigen titers ranged from 1000-50000 COI, with sero-negative anti-HBs antibody test for all samples tested positive for HBs antigen. This study delineated that negative or undetectable quantitation of HBV DNA level does not exclude HBV infection; as the level might fluctuate in different phases of HBV replication. This gives an impression and raising a question about significance of replacing test for HBsAg with quantitation of HBV DNA PCR assay. Thus the study refers to a special HBV profile outside the classical pattern.