[A review on new commercial methods for HIV-1 and HCV viral load determinations]

Abstract

Viral load techniques are more and more demanded in Clinical Microbiology, regarding with transplanted patients or long time follow-up of chronic diseases as those caused by human inmunodeficiency (HIV) and hepatitis C (HCV) viruses. In the last 2 years, pharmaceutical companies, interested to develop more efficient and accurate methods for the diagnosis and correct viral quantification of HIV and HCV, have converged in the real time-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique. This process is due to the increased sensitiviy, accuracy, linearity and correct detection of genomic viral variants of real time PCR techniques, in comparison with classical molecular methods applied since the nineties of the past century. In spite real time PCR appears as the best tool for the immediate future, new questions regarding the high variability of these viruses should be considered. This could affect the correctness of viral quantifications, while being difficult to detect it because of the methodological uniformity in the clinical laboratories.