Hepatitis C virus RNA genome in plasma of patients with non-A, non-B hepatitis.

Recently, the assay system of anti-hepatitis C virus antibody (HCV-Ab) was developed. However, there is no clinically useful method to detect hepatitis C virus (HCV) itself. The authors recently developed a method to detect the HCV-RNA genome in plasma using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). In the present study, the specificity of this assay in detecting HCV infection was investigated. Freshly obtained 1 ml plasma specimens from 100 patients with various liver diseases and from 11 control subjects were studied. In patients with non-A, non-B (NANB) hepatitis-related liver diseases, HCV-RNA was detected in 2 out of 7 cases of acute hepatitis, in 29 out of 31 cases of chronic hepatitis, in 17 out of 21 cases of cirrhosis and in 2 out of 6 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma. On the other hand, no HCV-RNA was detected in 15 cases of various types of alcoholic liver diseases, in 12 cases of hepatitis B related liver diseases, and in 11 controls. HCV-RNA was detected in 2 of 6 drinkers with chronic hepatitis. The prevalence of HCV-RNA was not closely related to a history of blood transfusions. These results suggest that our method for HCV-RNA is specific for HCV infection and HCV infection is the likely etiology of most chronic NANB hepatitis cases. The clinical usefulness of our method is illustrated by the fact that we were able to study 100 patients and needed only 1 ml plasma per HCV-RNA assay.