Major Discrepancies of HCV Viral Loads Determined by Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Caused by Use of Collection Tubes that Differ Only with the Presence or Absence of Serum Separator.

Background: For viral load (VL) analysis of hepatitis C virus (HCV) by Real Time PCR, approved collection tubes were lavender top (LTT) and plasma processing (PPT) tubes, that differ in that PPTs include plasma separator. Using a Real Time PCR method, we investigated how the results correlated for the two tube types.

Methods: The plasma fractions of blood samples from each of 202 patients were collected in LTT and PPT tubes at the same time and were assayed for HCV VL by the Abbott m2000 Real Time PCR System; the results were analyzed statistically.