INVERSE CORRELATION BETWEEN THE TITER OF ANTIBODY TO HEPATITIS-C VIRUS AND THE DEGREE OF HEPATITIS-C VIREMIA

We titrated 277 hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibody-positive serum samples from 235 volunteer blood donors as well as from 42 outpatients of a hospital for elderly people and studied the relation of the titre of HCV antibody to the presence of HCV RNA, of antibody to c100 protein (anti-c100) and of antibody to GOR epitope (anti-GOR). Liver dysfunction was measured also. Of 177 HCV RNA-positive serum samples, 87 were tested for the degree of HCV viraemia by means of a competitive assay. Among the 277 samples, prevalences of HCV RNA, anti-c100, anti-GOR and liver dysfunction were 63·9%, 71·8%, 75·7% and 17·5%, respectively. The prevalence of HCV RNA became higher as the titre of HCV antibody increased. The titre tended to increase with age but the tendency was not statistically significant. The mean titre was higher in females (210·4 ± 1·8) than in males (29·4 ± 2·2) (P < 0·01). In the HCV RNA-positive serum samples, the HCV antibody titre was significantly higher in the anti-c100-positive samples than in the negative ones. This difference between the positive and negative samples, however, was not statistically significant for anti-GOR and liver dysfunction. Low degrees of HCV viraemia were accompanied by high titres of HCV antibody while high degrees of HCV viraemia went with low titres of HCV antibody. The study revealed that titres of HCV antibody were higher in females and the degree of HCV viraemia correlated inversely with the titre of HCV antibody. © 1994 The British Society for the Study of Infection.