Background
Besides the great importance of the issue in terms of public health, there is a lack of studies evaluating the performance of several of the currently used point of care tests (POCTs) for the detection of anti-HCV. Objectives: To investigate the performance of two POCTs for anti-HCV detection and to assess the impact of the reading time on diagnostic performance. Patients and
Conclusions
The POCTs evaluated in this study showed high sensitivity and specificity, with no change in the performance after the third minute of reading.
Methods
A total of 307 subjects were divided into three groups (1- HCV infected; 2- other chronic liver diseases; and 3- controls). The POCTs HCV Rapid Test Bioeasy® and Imuno-Rapido HCV® were read at 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes. The sensitivity and specificity of the POCTs were calculated in relation to anti-HCV detection by chemiluminescence.
Results
Valid results were obtained for all tests. When compared to the chemiluminescence, both tests showed sensitivity of 97.1% and specificity of 100%. No changes in the sensitivity or specificity of the tests were observed at different reading times and when patients with other chronic liver diseases were evaluated as a control group. Conclusions: The POCTs evaluated in this study showed high sensitivity and specificity, with no change in the performance after the third minute of reading.