Antibody pattern to hepatitis C virus antigens in patients with acute and chronic liver diseases

The present paper describes the antibody pattern in the early stages of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and compares it with that obtained in chronic carriers. Samples were tested for anti-HCV from 470 consecutive patients admitted to gastroenterology services at three Havana hospitals, with serological and biochemical signs of non-A, non-B hepatitis, including those referred from three Havana blood banks because of a positive result in anti-HCV in pre-donation screening. Four anti-HCV enzyme immunoassay (EIA) systems and two supplementary assays were used for antibody detection. These results show that antibodies to viral core antigens are the first and commonest among Cuban patients infected with HCV, and generally, they can reveal the infection before the supplementary tests do. LiaTek HCV has proved to be a good tool for the confirmation of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) positive samples.