Hepatitis B core-related antigen (HBcrAg): an alternative to HBV DNA to assess treatment eligibility in Africa
- Shimakawa, Yusuke
- Ndow, Gibril
- Njie, Ramou
- Freeya Njai, Harr
- Takahashi, Kazuaki
- Akbar, Mohammad,
- Cohen, Damien
- Nayagam, Shevanthi
- Jeng, Adam
- Ceesay, Amie
- Sanneh, Bakary
- Baldeh, Ignatius
- Imaizumi, Masayasu
- Moriyama, Kazushige
- Aoyagi, Katsumi
- D'Alessandro, Umberto
- Mishiro, Shunji
- Chemin, Isabelle
- Mendy, Maimuna
- Thursz, Mark R.
- Lemoine, Maud
DOIAbstract
International audienceBackgroundTo eliminate hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, it is essential to scale up testing and treatment. However, conventional tools to assess treatment eligibility, particularly nucleic acid testing (NAT) to quantify HBV DNA, are hardly available and affordable in resource-limited countries. We therefore assessed the performance of novel immunoassay, hepatitis B core-related antigen(HBcrAg), as an inexpensive (US$ <10-15/assay) alternative to NAT to diagnose clinically important HBV DNA thresholds (≥2,000; ≥20,000; and ≥200,000 IU/ml), and select patients for antiviral therapy in Africa.MethodsUsing well-characterized cohort of treatment-naïve patients with chronic HBV infection in The Gambia, we evaluated the acc...
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