Prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus in patients on peritoneal dialysis. A multicenter study

The prevalence of antibodies to the hepatitis C virus (HCV) was determined in 333 peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients from 10 German dialysis units, using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay of the second generation (ELISA 2nd gen) which detects antibodies to a structural (C22) and to non-structural (C33c, C100, 5-1-1) recombinant antigens of HCV. Sera from 18/333 (5.4%) patients were anti-HCV positive versus 11/295 (3.7%) when the sera were tested by an ELISA of the first generation (ELISA 1st gen) containing only a non-structural antigen (C 100). In the 18 sera positive by ELISA 2nd gen, antibodies against at least one viral protein were found by recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) in 15/333 (4.5%) patients. In the sera of 11/15 (73,3%) patients HCV RNA was detected by nested PCR