Hepatitis B core antibody in volunteer blood donors: comparison of radioimmunoassay and indirect immunofluorescence.

The results of a pilot study on the prevalence of anti-HBc in HBsAg negative volunteer blood donors are presented. Two techniques for anti-HBc determination were compared--radioimmunoassay (RIA) and indirect immunofluorescence (IF). In a panel of 56 sera with known HBV markers, RIA was found to be significantly more sensitive than IF, and both techniques were specific. Out of 2,000 HBsAg negative blood donor sera tested by RIA, 46 (2.3%) were found positive for anti-HBc. In 24/24 sera, the specificity of the anti-HBc was confirmed. Also 37/46 (80.4%) anti-HBc positives were found positive for anti-HBs, leaving 9/2,000 (0.4%) blood donors positive only for anti-HBc. It is concluded that it would be premature to advocate the introduction of anti-HBc as a routine screening test of blood donors.