Antigénémie du virus de l'hépatite C : quel intérêt pour le laboratoire de biologie clinique ?

Hepatitis C virus core antigen detection was hoped to compensate for the limits of serology and molecular biology in the diagnosis and therapeutic management of hepatitis C. The use of Ortho Trak-c over a 6-month period in our laboratory did not lead to the implementation of this technique in routine analysis. Due to its insufficient performances in terms of sensitivity and specificity, and to its cost, the place of this test in a multidisciplinary clinical laboratory cannot be clearly defined.