Welcome to the Exeter Clinical Laboratory International website
NHS logo

Hepatitis C Quantitative PCR (Viral Load)

Microbiology


Usage

Use for determination of active ongoing HCV infection, monitoring of longer term disease progression and response to antiviral therapies.

Specimen

Blood sample (plasma)

Specimen container

Pink top EDTA (6ml)

To Request On EPIC

For electronic requesting using EPIC (RDUH ONLY):

Search for: ‘Hepatitis C Quantitative PCR‘ or test code ‘LAB887

Special Instructions

Samples from patients known to have blood transmissible viral infections should be clearly labelled “High Risk” or “Danger of Infection”.

Please state if patient is on antiviral treatment.

If this is post inoculation injury monitoring following injury from a known HCV +ve donor, send a sample within 48 hours of injury. Include details of the incident, i.e. date, and name/hospital number of the donor (with their consent).

Availability

Local test

Turnaround Time

8 days

Reporting

Viral loads will be reported in IU/ml and where appropriate a log will be given.

Limit of Detection (LoD) 15 IU/ml

Lower Limit of Quantitation (LLoQ) 15 IU/ml

Upper Limit of Quantitation (ULoQ) 100,000,000 IU/mL

Method

Roche Cobas 6800

Reference

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hepatitis-c-guidance-data-and-analysis

(Key words: HepC)

Specimen Labelling Procedure
University of Exeter logo
UKAS Medical logo

9018

Royal Devon University Healthcare logo