[The evolution of serologic tests in the diagnosis of HCV infections]

The Authors take in account the technical aspects of the serological tests for the diagnosis of HCV infections. Particularly they consider the better diagnostic capacity of the 2nd generation and, at the present time, 3rd generation screening tests compared to tests of 1st generation. This happens because an antigen, the c33-c, codified by a genomic sequence, specific for the non-structural proteins, NS3, of the genome of HCV virus is used in the last methodologies. This antigen induces the production of specific antibodies more quickly than the other antigenic proteins. Moreover in many cases of HCV infections it has been evidenced that the anti-c33-c are the only antibodies produced. For this reason the tests that use this antigen not only allow an early diagnosis, enclosing the "window effect", but in every case have the best diagnostic capacity. Moreover the authors evaluate also the tests defined "confirmatory tests", in which the importance of the presence of systems for the identification of both anti-c33-c and c22-3 antibodies is evidenced.