Dr. Francisco Rodríguez Frías, investigator of the Liver Diseases group of Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR) led a study published in Journal of Clinical Microbiology to compare two methods of genotyping/subtyping of Hepatitis C virus. This parameter is important to decide and optimize the treatment of this pathology so that an error in the genotyping of the virus can cause a treatment failure.
Dr. Rodríguez Frías explains that approximately a year ago, they published a study of a method of massive sequencing which allow the classification of the entirety of subtypes of the virus. The inconvenience is that this method is complex and not available to the great majority of laboratories. For this reason, the trade house developed a new equipment more simple. Now the group of Dr. Rodríguez Frías validated this new method comparing the results with the ones obtained by the reference method and the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital is the first center in using this screening method once the validation was completed.
The new method of analysis does not allow to determine the subtypes of the virus, only the 1a and 1b and the rest of genotypes without specifying the subtype. However, this is not a requirement of the international guidelines for treatment, which means that determining the genotype is enough to make therapeutic decisions.
Dr. Rodríguez Frías recommendation is “to use this method as a routine method because it is better than methods actually used and it could be available in any laboratory”.
As the 80% of cases of Hepatitis C virus correspond to genotypes 1a and 1b, any laboratory could analyze its samples and send only the cases that the new method is not able to determine –between 3% and 4%- to reference centers as well as cases with an interest in specifying the subtype. Thus, the new system can be used to analyze samples in the first place.
“An efficient network will be generated” comments Dr. Rodríguez Frías, who explains that this procedure will reduce the workload of the laboratory because in the 80% of the cases the results will be released the same day (within 2.5 h of analysis). This will allow the physician to know the results expeditiously and decide and apply treatment right away. Only the 4% of the samples, which are not correctly solved by the easy method, will be analyzed by the reference method in a center where this system is available. The rest of the samples –the 20% which do not correspond to genotypes 1a and 1b- will be processed by the reference method in case there is an interest to know the subtype, which Dr. Rodríguez Frías believes is interesting.
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