Hepatitis C: Questions

[Jet1000]

Hello,

Thank you for reading my message.

My PCP did my annual physical last week, and my Hepatitis C AB test result came as positive. I am waiting for the results for the HCV RNA PCR. I cannot recall if this test was ever done before.

I have never done drugs or used needles in my life. I cannot think of a single activity that I have done in my life where there was a blood-to-blood transfer between me and someone else. I live alone and do not indulge in any sexual activity. I am male, 45, 5 ft 8, 135 lbs, work out twice per week with dumbbells and eat a plant-based diet.

The only way I can think of having contracted Hep C is when I get my blood drawn for my doctor visits (every 6 months or so) at a hospital lab due to improper use of the needles by the nurse, which seems unlikely as I always see them open a new syringe before drawing my blood.

Medications:
Spironolactone: 50 mg for my retinal condition
Cabergoline 0.5 mg for elevated prolactin
Letrozole for elevated estrogen
Vitamin D supplement.


Questions:
1) Given the above background, I am trying to figure out how my Hep C Antibody came as positive.  Any responses would be helpful.

2) How long does it take to get results for the HCV RNA PCR test?

Thank you

[Lynn K]

There are on rare occasions false positives. So for the moment take a breath.

It takes I believe 3 to 5 days for the HCV RNA by PCR test results to come back.

“ False-positive results appear to be common. According to a 2017 report , 22 percent of 479 subjects received a false-positive anti-HCV test. According to a 2020 report, the rate of false-positive test results among 1,814 reactive serum samples was 10 percent”

https://www.healthline.com/health/hepatitis-c-false-positive#how-common-is-it


Good luck sending you wishes for negative test results

[Mugwump]

Good to see some action on this forum again. I have seen quite a few false positive AB tests done here in Canada over the years since HCV was isolated and an antibody test was patented. The HCV antibody tests of the past were terrible and caused many people to panic including 2 members of my family who are not infected and most likely never were. A few friends of mine from way back did get tested when they heard I had HCV even though there was no possibility of my infecting them, one of them tested positive for antibodies and upon retesting found that it was a false positive. The other tested AB negative.


So the old standard of doing the AB test at least twice still applies instead of immediately rushing off to do an expensive PCR RNA immediately and scaring the crap out of people who are most likely not serum positive at all and never have been!


Because there are still a fair number of labs using the old and now relatively cheap serum AB tests for HCV and those tests are at best flakey, just perhaps false positive results are a little more common than one would believe.


Just perhaps false positives have become a case of the more cheap patented HCV AB test kits one particular company pumps out the more the stock value and bottom line of the firm increases. 

[cristipund4]

this is useful information