Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr:290:114063.
doi: 10.1016/j.jviromet.2021.114063. Epub 2021 Jan 13.

Performance evaluation of Xpert HBV viral load (VL) assay: Point-of-care molecular test to strengthen and decentralize management of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection

Affiliations

Performance evaluation of Xpert HBV viral load (VL) assay: Point-of-care molecular test to strengthen and decentralize management of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection

Ekta Gupta et al. J Virol Methods. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

Introduction: Estimation of hepatitis B (HBV) viral load (VL) is critical in hepatitis-B cascade-of-care and at present there is no point of care (POC) molecular assay available for the same. This study evaluated the performance of a new near point of care molecular assay Xpert HBV- VL assay against the approved assays.

Materials & methods: In this study 172 archived previously tested samples, were simultaneously re-tested for HBV DNA on 3 real-time PCR assays: Abbott Real-Time HBV, Roche TaqMan® HBV and Xpert HBV assay.

Results: Out of 172 samples, 119 were previously positive for HBV DNA with a median VL 4.46 (IQR: 1-8.76)log10IU/mL and 53 were HBV DNA negative. Genotyping could be done in 95 (79.8 %) samples and genotype D (83; 87.3 %) was the commonest type. The Xpert assay demonstrated a good correlation with Abbott (R2 = 0.94) and Roche (R2 = 0.96). On comparison, the mean difference with 95 % Confidence Interval of Xpert assay was -0.018 and -0.043 log10 IU/mL with Abbott and Roche assay, respectively. The overall sensitivity, specificity, negative predictive value, and positive predictive value of the Xpert assay was found 97.5 %, 100 %, 94.65 & 100 % respectively.

Conclusion: Xpert HBV-VL assay which has a potential for near point of care molecular testing has shown excellent performance and found to be a reliable method for HBV DNA quantification.

Keywords: Chronic hepatitis B; Gene Xpert; HBV DNA; HBV genotype; HBsAg; Real time PCR; Viral load.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

Cited by

LinkOut - more resources