In-Vitro Problems Of Screening (Anti-Hcv) And Confirmatory Tests (Riba) For The Diagnosis Of Hcv Infections : The Relation Of Neopterin And Scd14 With Low Anti-Hcv Reactivity And Different Riba Patterns

Background: Neopterin and sCD14 levels could be detected at high levels in HBV, HCV and HIV infections as well as pathologies including trauma, sepsis and rheumaoid arthritist. We aimed to evaluate the importance of neopterin and sCD14 levels for the determination of HCV infection in situations where low Anti-HCV reactivity and indeterminate RIBA are present. We also aimed to compose a new diagnostic perspective for the atypical cases which have low Anti-HCV reactivity and different RIBA results Methods & Materials: As Total Study Group (TSG), 70 individuals with low reactive Anti-HCV test results due to > 1-<3,8 signal/cut-off value andwith 30 negative, 30 indeterminate and 10 positive RIBA results were included. As Patient Control Group (PCG), and Healthy Control Group (HCG), thirty individuals per group were included. ELISA method, HCV RIBA/LIA and HCV-RNA tests were used. Neopterin and sCD14 levels were measured by competitive and serological EIA methods Results: When groups were compared for neopterin levels; mean neopterin level was found low with advanced significant difference in TSG when compared with PCG, (p < 0.001), On the other hand, no significant difference was found between TSG and HCG (p > 0.05), as the levels were close each other. Mean sCD14 level was found significantly higher in TSG thanPCG and HCG (p < 005, p < 0,001) Conclusion: Neopterin levels determined in the cases with low reactive Anti-HCV and different RIBA patterns could not suggest a specific immunoactivation based on HCV infections. We think that sCD14 test may probably have been non-specifically affected as a result of some underlying immunohematological atypical patologies. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that using only neopterin not sCD14, together with fourth-generation Combo tests based on EIA/CMIA will be usefull in the situations where NAT can not be available for screening of blood donors in blood banks