Vol. 7(41), pp. 4907-4911, 11 October, 2013 DOI: 10.5897/AJMR2012.2300 ISSN 1996-0808 ©2013 Academic Journals http://www.academicjournals.org/AJMR African Journal of Microbiology Research Full Length Research Paper Correlation between architect hepatitis C virus (HCV) core antigen and HCV Ribonucleic acid levels in Anti- HCV reactive patients in Turkey BURUK Kurtulus 1 , BAYRAMOGLU Gulcin 1 , KAKLIKKAYA Nese 1 *, AKYUZ Zeynep 1 , KAYA Selcuk 2 , KOKSAL Iftihar 2 , CAN Gamze 3 and AYDIN Faruk 1 1 Karadeniz Technical University Medical Faculty, Department of Medical Microbiology, Trabzon, Turkey. 2 Karadeniz Technical University Medical Faculty, Department of Infectious Diseases, Trabzon, Turkey. 3 Karadeniz Technical University Medical Faculty, Department of Public Health, Trabzon, Turkey. Accepted 20 September, 2013 Quantitative tests for the detection of hepatitis C virus ribonucleic acid (HCV-RNA) levels and HCV core antigen have been mainly used for the management of patients with HCV infection. The aim of this study was to evaluate the correlation between HCV core antigen and HCV RNA levels in patients reactive for anti-HCV antibodies. Three hundred and twenty-five anti-HCV reactive sera samples were included in the study. HCV core antigen and HCV RNA levels were determined using the Architect HCV Ag test and Abbott RealTime TM HCV RNA test (RT-PCR), respectively. The correlation coefficient between the levels of HCV core antigen and HCV RNA test results was calculated using Spearman’s rank test, and linear regression analysis was applied. One hundred and sixteen of the 325 samples were detected positive by both methods. Three additional samples by RT-PCR, and 4 samples by Architect HCV Ag, the negative samples were found positive by the other method. All of these contradictory results were obtained from the low level HCV RNA or HCV core antigen including samples. A correlation coefficient (r) was determined as 0.899 between the levels of HCV core antigen and HCV RNA (p<0.0001). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the HCV core antigen test were 97.48, 98.06, 96.67 and 98.54%, respectively, using the HCV RNA test as a reference. The Architect HCV core antigen test exhibits a good correlation with the HCV RNA test. It can be used as an alternative method, especially when the HCV RNA test is unavailable. Key words: Anti- hepatitis C virus, Architect hepatitis C virus Ag test, hepatitis C virus RNA. INTRODUCTION The most frequently used screening method in the diag- nosis of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections is the detection of anti-HCV antibodies in serum or plasma. Nevertheless, anti-HCV antibodies reached detectable levels in the serum after a long window period of HCV infection. Addi- tionally, even if the virus is eliminated from the blood its presence may persist for many years, for which reason this method cannot be used for the differentiation of active or past infection or for monitoring antiviral therapy. At the same time, tests used for determining anti-HCV antibodies can give false positive results for various rea- sons (Chevaliez, 2011; Richter 2002; Alter et al., 2003). *Corresponding author. E-mail: nkkaya@yahoo.com. Tel: +90 532784 8648. Fax: +90 462 377 5340.