Publications by authors named "L Vallefuoco"
Background And Aims: The prevalence of HDV infection in HBsAg carriers is about 9.9% in Italy. However, the real prevalence is underestimated because the anti-HDV test is not performed routinely in all HBsAg carriers.
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- Over 90% of chronic hepatitis C patients treated with direct-acting antivirals achieve a sustained viral response (SVR), but some still face serious liver issues and cancer risk, highlighting the need for liver fibrosis evaluation.
- A study compared the effectiveness of transient elastography (TE) and enhanced liver fibrosis (ELF) score in assessing liver fibrosis in HCV patients before and after treatment, revealing poor concordance between the two methods but both indicated improvement in fibrosis over time.
- The ELF score may serve as a useful alternative to TE for predicting liver fibrosis changes, especially when TE is unavailable, as both methods showed significant associations with liver complications at baseline.
Hepatitis B/D virus infection leads to severe liver disease. HDV infection is not routinely investigated since the diagnosis is based on enzyme immunoassays (EIAs), which are not available in all laboratories. This study investigates the performance of new automated assay for anti HDV Ab detection: LIAISON® XL Murex anti-HDV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) can be considered the most important agent of congenital infection. Long-term sequelae of congenital infection occur in about 15% of infants asymptomatic at birth. To avoid long-term sequelae or to reduce their burden, it is necessary to identify infected children for early interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Laboratory diagnosis of HIV infection is essential for the prevention of infection and the identification of infected individuals who could benefit from highly active antiretroviral therapy. Since the release of the first assays for the detection of anti-HIV antibodies, the technology of immunoassays has improved.
Areas Covered: Fourth generation assays - simultaneously detecting HIV p24 antigen and antibodies - have been developed and have been a major improvement in the detection of HIV infection, with a reduction of the diagnostic window.