ArticleJournal of clinical microbiology2019
Significant Improvement in Diagnosis of Hepatitis C Virus Infection by a One-Step Strategy in a Central Laboratory: an Optimal Tool for Hepatitis C Elimination?
Article in Journal of clinical microbiology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Risk assessment and mitigation of hepatitis C virus RNA carryover contamination in a reflex testing algorithm.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2026Article
- Missed confirmatory HCV RNA testing in anti-HCV-reactive patients and the role of reflex testing in improving completion of the hepatitis C diagnostic care cascade: a laboratory-based retrospective study.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Observational
- Optimizing hepatitis C virus testing in the era of point-of-care RNA diagnostics.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2026Article
- Long-term spatial-temporal evolution of hepatitis C burden in eastern China: a retrospective case analysis from Wuxi City.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Impact of Hepatitis B Virus Point-of-care DNA Viral Load Testing Compared With Laboratory-based Standard-of-care Approaches on Uptake of HBV Viral Load Testing, Treatment, and Turnaround Times: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Open forum infectious diseases · 2024Article
- What Is Needed to Move Toward Single-Step Diagnosis of Current HCV Infection?The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Review
- Impact of storage time in dried blood samples (DBS) and dried plasma samples (DPS) for point-of-care hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA quantification and HCV core antigen detection.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Province-to-province variability in hepatitis C testing, care, and treatment across Canada.Canadian liver journal · 2023Article
- Evaluating the utility of a two-assay serological algorithm for hepatitis C screening in a low prevalence population.Journal of clinical laboratory analysis · 2023Article
- Liver function tests in primary care provide a key opportunity to diagnose and engage patients with hepatitis C.Epidemiology and infection · 2022Article
- HCV reflex testing: A single-sample, low-contamination method that improves the diagnostic efficiency of HCV testing among patients in Alberta, Canada.Journal of the Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada = Journal officiel de l'Association pour la microbiologie medicale et l'infectiologie Canada · 2022Article
- Hepatitis C: Problems to extinction and residual hepatic and extrahepatic lesions after sustained virological response.World journal of hepatology · 2022Review
- Prevalence of Hepatitis C Virus Infection, Genotypes and Subtypes in Migrants from Pakistan in Barcelona, Spain.Infection and drug resistance · 2022Article
- Utility of the CobasDiagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- [Exploring the health education model for chronic hepatitis C micro-elimination in Guizhou Province from a global perspectives].Zhonghua gan zang bing za zhi = Zhonghua ganzangbing zazhi = Chinese journal of hepatology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The remarkable effectivity of current antiviral therapies has led to consider the elimination of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. However, HCV infection is highly underdiagnosed; therefore, a global strategy for eliminating it requires improving the effectiveness of HCV diagnosis to identify hidden cases. In this study, we assessed the effectiveness of a protocol for HCV diagnosis based on viral load reflex testing of anti-HCV antibody-positive patients (known as one-step diagnosis) by analyzing all diagnostic tests performed by a central laboratory covering an area of 1.5 million inhabitants in Barcelona, Spain, before (83,786 cases) and after (45,935 cases) the implementation of the reflex testing protocol. After its implementation, the percentage of anti-HCV-positive patients with omitted HCV RNA determination remarkably decreased in most settings, particularly in drug treatment centers and primary care settings, where omitted HCV RNA analyses had absolute reductions of 76.4 and 20.2%, respectively. In these two settings, the percentage of HCV RNA-positive patients identified as a result of reflex testing accounted for 55 and 61% of all anti-HCV-positive patients. HCV RNA results were provided in a mean of 2 days. The presence of HCV RNA and age of ≥65 years were significantly associated with advanced fibrosis, assessed using the serological FIB-4 index (odds ratio [OR], 5.92; 95% confidence interval [CI], 3.4 to 10.4). The implementation of viral load reflex testing in a central laboratory is feasible and significantly increases the diagnostic effectiveness of HCV infections, while allowing the identification of underdiagnosed cases.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.