Hepatitis C virus core antigen: Analytical performances, correlation with viremia and potential applications of a quantitative, automated immunoassay

Abstract Background Testing for hepatitis C virus core antigen (HCV Ag) may represent a complementary tool to anti-HCV and HCV-RNA in the diagnosis and monitoring of HCV infection. Objective To evaluate the performance characteristics of the automated Abbott ARCHITECT HCV Ag assay. Study design Five sites analyzed over 3000 routine serum samples from populations at different risk, comparing HCV Ag results with anti-HCV screening and supplemental assay results and with HCV-RNA. Results The HCV Ag assay showed a specificity of 100%, a good precision (CV  r  > 0.999). The sensitivity (3 fmol/L) corresponds to 700–1100 IU/mL of HCV-RNA. A non-linear correlation with HCV-RNA was found: r  = 0.713 vs. Siemens bDNA (523 specimens), r  = 0.736 vs. Roche Cobas TaqMan (356 specimens) and r  = 0.870 vs. Abbott Real-Ti m e PCR (273 specimens). HCV Ag quantitation was equally effective on different HCV genoypes (239 for genotype 1/1a/1b/1c, 108 for genotype 2/2a/2c, 86 for genotype 3/3a, 50 for genotype 4/4a/4c/4d). Testing of subjects at high risk for HCV and with potential or actual impairment of the immune system identified 2 cases negative for anti-HCV and positive for HCV Ag on 361 hemodialyzed (0.6%) and 7 cases on 97 (7.2%) among transplant recipients. HCV Ag positivity anticipated anti-HCV seroconversion in all three cases of acute hepatitis C. Conclusions HCV Ag may be used as reflex testing on anti-HCV positive individuals to confirm or exclude an active infection, and on subjects with acute hepatitis or belonging to high risk groups.