Levels of viraemia in subjects with serological markers of past or chronic hepatitis B virus infection.

Subjects with serological markers for a past HBV infection may still have HBV DNA in their serum, but the levels of viraemia in such cases are not known. In the present study, of 63 consecutive HBsAg-negative, anti-HBc-positive serum samples with or without anti-HBs, 20 were HBV DNA-positive as analysed by a highly sensitive quantitative PCR, the Cobas Amplicor HBV Monitor test. However, all of these 20 samples had viraemia levels below 1000 copies/ml, compared with median viraemia levels of 10(8.

Automated quantitative analysis of hepatitis B virus DNA by using the Cobas Amplicor HBV monitor test.

A highly sensitive method of quantitative analysis of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in serum, the Cobas Amplicor HBV Monitor (Cobas-AM) test, was evaluated. Following a manual extraction of viral DNA, amplification, colorimetric detection, and quantitative determination are all automatically performed in the Cobas analyzer. Serially diluted samples with known HBV DNA concentrations were analyzed blindly.