diagnostic performance of two point-of-care tests for anti-hcv detection

background besides the great importance of the issue in terms of public health, there is a lack of studies evaluating the performance of several of the currently used point of care tests (pocts) for the detection of anti-hcv. objectives to investigate the performance of two pocts for anti-hcv detection and to assess the impact of the reading time on diagnostic performance. patients and methods a total of 307 subjects were divided into three groups (1- hcv infected; 2- other chronic liver diseases; and 3- controls). the pocts hcv rapid test bioeasy® and imuno-rapido hcv® were read at 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes. the sensitivity and specificity of the pocts were calculated in relation to anti-hcv detection by chemiluminescence. results valid results were obtained for all tests. when compared to the chemiluminescence, both tests showed sensitivity of 97.1% and specificity of 100%. no changes in the sensitivity or specificity of the tests were observed at different reading times and when patients with other chronic liver diseases were evaluated as a control group. conclusions the pocts evaluated in this study showed high sensitivity and specificity, with no change in the performance after the third minute of reading.