QUANTITATION OF HEPATITIS C VIRUS IN PERIPHERAL BLOOD

丙型肝炎(丙型肝炎)是一种通过肠道外传播的RNA病毒，它已经被 被证明是大多数Nona-Non B慢性病例的责任 活动性肝炎。这种病毒会导致相当大的发病率和死亡率。 全世界。自从发现这种病毒以来，已经取得了相当大的进展 在开发定性和定量分析方面取得了进展 抗病毒治疗期间患者的诊断和处理。虽然 目前丙型肝炎病毒的血清或血浆定量分析已被证明是有用的， 它们与丙型肝炎病毒致病机制的相关性很差，它们提供了 用于患者临床管理的诊断信息有限 在抗病毒治疗期间。我们实验室最近研制出了一种 外周全血中丙型肝炎病毒RNA的直接检测方法 这比目前的基于血浆或血清的丙型肝炎病毒检测更敏感。 因此，量化的表征和标准化 全血中丙型肝炎病毒的检测方法是有价值的，并可能提供 一种更可靠的全血病毒载量与肝脏相关的方法 慢性感染的病理与治疗。这项提议将 用三个具体目标解决这一假设：1)建立在我们 过去的观察，我们将开发和标准化的化验 外周全血中丙型肝炎病毒的定量。2)。量化整体 然后将使用丙型肝炎病毒的血液分析来调查两者之间的关系 全血病毒水平与肝脏组织学活动指数的关系。 3)。最后，我们将测量患者的全血病毒载量 在抗病毒治疗之前、期间和之后。这些实验将 检测全血中丙型肝炎病毒的定量是否有可能提高 我们预测治疗后患者结果的能力。总目标 这项建议的目的是建立可行性和临床实用价值。 外周全血病毒定量检测方法的研究 血。我们希望这项新技术将改善患者的评估 和管理，以及增加我们对 丙型肝炎病毒的发病机制。

Hepatitis C (HCV) is a parenterally transmitted RNA virus that has been shown to be responsible for the majority of cases of NonA-NonB chronic active hepatitis. The virus causes considerable morbidity and mortality worldwide. Since discovery of the virus, considerable progress has been made in the development of qualitative and quantitative assays for patient diagnosis and management during antiviral therapy. Although current serum or plasma quantitative assays for HCV have proven utility, their correlation with the pathogenesis of HCV is poor and they offer limited diagnostic information for clinical management of patients during antiviral therapy. Our laboratory has recently developed a method for the direct detection of HCV RNA in peripheral whole blood which is more sensitive than current plasma or serum based HCV assays. Consequently, characterization and standardization of quantitative methods for assay of HCV in whole blood is worthwhile and may provide a more reliable means to correlate whole blood viral load with hepatic pathology and treatment of chronic infection. This proposal will address this hypothesis with three specific aims: 1) Building on our past observations, we will develop and standardize assays for the quantitation of HCV in peripheral whole blood. 2). Quantitative whole blood assays for HCV will then be used to investigate the relationship of whole blood viral levels with hepatic histologic activity indices. 3). Finally, we will measure the whole blood viral load of patients before, during, and following antiviral therapy. These experiments will test whether quantitation of HCV in whole blood can potentially improve our ability to predict patient outcome after therapy. The overall goal of this proposal is to establish the feasibility and clinical utility of quantitative methods for measurement of the virus in peripheral whole blood. We hope that this new technology will improve patient evaluation and management, as well as increase our understanding of the pathogenesis of HCV.