Occult hepatitis B virus infection in Egypt

Table 2 Methods of hepatitis B virus DNA detection in included studies

Ref.	HBV DNA detected in	PCR method	DNA limit of detection
Elrashidy et al[10]	Serum	Nested	ND
Raouf et al[20]	Serum	Real-time and Nested	ND
Kishk et al[21]	Serum	Real-time and Nested	ND
Elkady et al[22]	Serum	Real-time	20 IU/mL
Said et al[34]	Serum	Real-time	3.8 IU/mL
El-Ghitany et al[31]	Serum	Semi-nested	45 copies/mL
Youssef et al[23]	Serum	Real-time	10 copies/mL
Abu El Makarem et al[18]	Serum	Nested and Real-time for HBV-DNA-positive by nested PCR	6 IU/mL for real-time PCR
Elgohry et al[19]	Serum	Real-time	ND
Shaker et al[27]	Serum	Real-time	ND
Selim et al[30]	Serum	Semi-nested	45 copies/mL
Hassan et al[54]	Liver tissue	Nested	ND
Emara et al[32]	Serum	Real-time	12 IU/mL
Antar et al[25]	Serum	Real-time	ND
El-Sherif et al[29]	Serum	Real-time	35 copies/mL
Youssef et al[26]	Serum	Nested	ND
El-Zayadi et al[33]	Serum	Nested	ND
Said et al[28]	Serum	Nested	ND
1El-Sherif et al[39]	Serum	Nested	ND

¹Data taken by direct contact with authors. ND: Not determined; PCR: Polymerase chain reaction; HBV: Hepatitis B virus.