Immunological techniques in viral hepatitis.

The need to quantitate and monitor immune responses of large patient cohorts with standardized techniques is increasing due to the growing range of treatment options for hepatitis B and hepatitis C, the development of combination therapies, and candidate experimental vaccines for HCV. In addition, advances in immunological techniques have provided new tools for detailed phenotypic and functional analysis of cellular immune responses. At present, there is substantial variation in laboratory protocols, reagents, controls and analysis and presentation of results. Standardization of immunological assays would therefore allow better comparison of results amongst individual laboratories and patient cohorts. The EASL-sponsored and AASLD-endorsed Monothematic Conference on Clinical Immunology in Viral Hepatitis was held at the University College London, United Kingdom, Oct 7-8, 2006 to bring together investigators with research experience in clinical immunology of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections for in-depth discussion, critical evaluation and standardization of immunological assays. This report summarizes the information presented and discussed at the conference, but is not intended to represent a consensus statement. Our aim is to highlight topics and issues that were supported by general agreement and those that were controversial, as well as to provide suggestions for future work.