Analysis of the predictive value of HCV RNA results measured with real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for response-guided therapy in chronic Hepatitis C virus infection

Introduction: The molecular diagnostic methods currently used for the quantitative measurement of hepatitis C virus (HCV) nucleic acid have substantial differences in their lower limits of detection (LOD) and their linear ranges. In the Hungarian response-guided therapeutic protocol, we use real-time PCR method with an LOD of 9.0 IU/ml (Cobas TaqMan), but results