Background: Besides the great importance of the issue in terms of public health, there is a lack of studies evaluating the performance of several of the currently used point of care tests (POCTs) for the detection of anti-HCV. Objectives: To investigate the performance of two POCTs for anti-HCV detection and to assess the impact of the reading time on diagnostic performance. Patients and Methods: A total of 307 subjects were divided into three groups (1- HCV infected; 2- other chronic liver diseases; and 3- controls). The POCTs HCV Rapid Test Bioeasy? and Imuno-Rapido HCV? were read at 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes. The sensitivity and specificity of the POCTs were calculated in relation to anti-HCV detection by chemiluminescence. Results: Valid results were obtained for all tests. When compared to the chemiluminescence, both tests showed sensitivity of 97.1% and specificity of 100%. No changes in the sensitivity or specificity of the tests were observed at different reading times and when patients with other chronic liver diseases were evaluated as a control group. Conclusions: The POCTs evaluated in this study showed high sensitivity and specificity, with no change in the performance after the third minute of reading.
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