Weck Karen
University of North Carolina, Campus Box 7525, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7525, USA.
Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2005 Jul;5(4):507-20. doi: 10.1586/14737159.5.4.507.
Hepatitis C virus is an RNA virus that is associated with chronic infection in the majority of people infected. Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus is the cause of significant morbidity and mortality worldwide and is associated with a large spectrum of liver disease including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. End-stage liver disease due to chronic hepatitis C virus infection is currently the leading indication for liver transplantation in the USA. Hepatitis C virus genotyping of viral isolates circulating in the blood during chronic infection has become an important part of hepatitis C virus monitoring in chronically infected patients, and is useful as a prognostic indicator and to direct duration of therapy. This review will summarize information on hepatitis C genotyping, describe the limitations of current commercially available methods, give information on more recently developed methods, and provide a look to the future in terms of where advances in hepatitis C virus genotyping assays need to be made.
丙型肝炎病毒是一种RNA病毒，大多数感染者会出现慢性感染。全球范围内，丙型肝炎病毒慢性感染是导致严重发病和死亡的原因，且与包括肝硬化和肝细胞癌在内的多种肝脏疾病相关。在美国，慢性丙型肝炎病毒感染所致的终末期肝病目前是肝移植的主要指征。慢性感染期间血液中循环的病毒分离株的丙型肝炎病毒基因分型已成为慢性感染患者丙型肝炎病毒监测的重要组成部分，可用作预后指标并指导治疗疗程。本综述将总结丙型肝炎基因分型的相关信息，描述当前商用方法的局限性，介绍最新开发方法的相关信息，并展望丙型肝炎病毒基因分型检测在哪些方面需要取得进展。
