Evaluation of three commercially available hepatitis C virus antibody detection assays under the conditions of a clinical virology laboratory.

Background: Most studies evaluating antibody detection assays are conducted on samples from healthy blood donors but not on samples of hospitalized patients which can show non-specific reactions.

Objectives: To compare the performance of three commercial automated assays for the detection of hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibodies, Monolisa anti-HCV Plus version 2, Axsym anti-HCV 3.0 and Vitros anti-HCV, on a population of hospitalized patients.