Detection of the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in patients with occult hepatitis B using a sensitive HBsAg assay
Danny Wong1,2, James Fung1,2 Claire Chen3, Lung-Yi Mak2, Wai-Kay Seto, ManFung Yuen1,2
1Department of Medicine
2State Key Laboratory of Liver Research, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
3Abbott Laboratories, Singapore.
E-mail:- anurag.bhargava@abbott.com
2021 American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) Meeting. Nov 12-15, 2021
Introduction
Patients with occult hepatitis B infection (OBI) have undetectable hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) by conventional assays, but detectable hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in the blood and/or liver. Conventional HBsAg assays generally have a limit of detection (LLOD) of 0.02 – 0.05 IU/mL. Sensitive assays for HBsAg detection have been developed, one of which is the ARCHITECT HBsAg Next Qualitative Assay (Abbott Laboratories; referred as HBsAg NEXT), with an enhanced analytical sensitivity of 0.0052 IU/mL.1.
Aim
To evaluate the performance of HBsAg NEXT with respect to HBsAg detection in patients with OBI.
