Update on hepatitis B and C virus diagnosis

Table 2 Advantages and disadvantages characteristics of hepatitis B virus serological assays

Technique	Advantages	Disadvantage	Commercial assays	Ref.
RIA	High sensitivity	High cost	IRMA kit (North Institute of Biological Technology, Beijing, China)	[38,39,44]
		Risk to operator
EIA	Automation	Time consuming, need sophisticated equipment and trained technicians, continuous supply of electricity, not suitable for field settings	ETI-AB-AUK-3 (DiaSorin)	[41,42,47,48]
	High reproducible results		Enzygnost anti-HBs (Dade Behring)
	Low cost		Monolisa anti-HBs (Bio-Rad Laboratories)
MEIA	High sensitivity	Sophisticated equipment, trained technicians, continuous supply of electricity	Abbott Axsym AUSAB assay	[47]
	Faster than other immunological methods
ECLIA	High sensitivity	High cost, sophisticated equipment, trained technicians, continuous supply of electricity	Modular E170 analyzer, Roche Diagnostics	[43,44,46]
	Results available in few minutes
	Automation
CLIA	High sensitivity and specificity Automation	High cost, sophisticated equipment, trained technicians, continuous supply of electricity	Advia Centaur anti-HBs	[47]
			Vitros anti-HBs on the Vitros ECI Immunodiagnostic system (Ortho Clinical Diagnostics)
			Roche Elecsys anti-HBs on the Modular System (Roche Diagnostics)
			Liaison anti-HBs on the Liaison system (DiaSorin) Abbott Architect anti-HBs assay on the Architect i2000 system (Abbott)
CMIA	High sensitivity and specificity Automation	High cost, sophisticated equipment, trained technicians, continuous supply of electricity	Architect i2000 analyzer (Abbott Diagnostics)	[44]
Rapid point-of-care tests	Simplicity, do not need sophisticated equipaments, minimum training to execute the assay, storage and performance at room temperature, results can be read in up to 10 min	Poor performance in seroconversion panels and among individuals infected by several HBV mutants	Determine™ HBsAg (Abbott Laboratories)	[49-56]
			Virucheck® HBsAg (Orchid Biomedical Systems)
			Cypress HBsAg (Cypress Diagnostics)
			Hexagon® HBsAg (Human)
			Cortez Rapidtest (Cortez Diagnostics)
			VIKIA HBsAg (Biomériuex)
			Quick Profile™ (Lumiquick)
			DRW-HBsAg v2.0 (Diagnostics for the Real WorldTM)
			AMRAD ICT
			Binax
			Advanced quality™ one step test (Intec Products)

HBV: Hepatitis B virus; RIA: Radioimmunoassay; EIA: Enzyme immunoassay; MEIA: Micro-particle enzyme immunoassay; ECLIA: Electrochemiluminescence immunoassay; CLIA: Chemiluminescence immunoassay; CMIA: Chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay; HBsAg: Epatitis B surface antigen; Anti-HBs: Antibodies against HBsAg.