a Viral Hepatitis Clinical Research Program, The Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney , Sydney , Australia.
b St Vincent's Centre for Applied Medical Research , Darlinghurst, Sydney , Australia.
Expert Rev Mol Diagn. 2017 Dec;17(12):1109-1115. doi: 10.1080/14737159.2017.1400385. Epub 2017 Nov 8.
The availability of simple, tolerable, therapies for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with responses >95% is one of the greatest medical advances in decades, offering an opportunity to reverse the rising burden due to HCV and strive towards HCV elimination. A key challenge moving forward will be to ensure that those who are undiagnosed are made aware of their infection, receive HCV therapy and achieve viral cure. The availability of point-of-care tests for HCV infection has the potential to simplify testing algorithms, increase diagnoses, and facilitate linkage to treatment. Areas covered: This commentary explores why point-of-care tests for HCV are needed, what markers of HCV can be measured, methods for sample collection, where HCV testing can occur, and the remaining challenges for HCV point-of-care testing. Expert commentary: Currently, we have reached an era where there are now several commercial assays to detect HCV RNA (active HCV infection) in 60-90 min, and have reached a single visit HCV diagnosis. In the future, it is hoped that further technological advances will enable access to low-cost, rapid, and accurate assays for HCV RNA detection, improving the number of people diagnosed with HCV infection and contributing to global elimination efforts.
针对丙型肝炎病毒 (HCV) 感染的简便、耐受的疗法，其应答率>95%，是几十年来最重大的医学进展之一，为逆转因 HCV 而不断增加的负担并努力实现 HCV 消除提供了机会。未来的一个关键挑战将是确保那些未被诊断的人了解其感染情况，接受 HCV 治疗并实现病毒治愈。即时检测 HCV 感染的可能性为简化检测算法、增加诊断并促进与治疗的联系提供了机会。涵盖领域：本评论探讨了为什么需要 HCV 的即时检测，可测量的 HCV 标志物有哪些，样本采集方法，在哪里可以进行 HCV 检测，以及 HCV 即时检测的剩余挑战。专家评论：目前，我们已经进入了一个时代，现在有几种商业检测方法可以在 60-90 分钟内检测 HCV RNA（活跃的 HCV 感染），并实现了单次就诊 HCV 诊断。未来，人们希望进一步的技术进步将使我们能够获得低成本、快速和准确的 HCV RNA 检测方法，从而增加被诊断为 HCV 感染的人数，并为全球消除努力做出贡献。
