Hepatitis E virus blood donor NAT screening: as much as possible or as much as needed?

摘要: Background The cost-benefit question of general screening blood products for the hepatitis E virus (HEV) is currently being discussed. One central need individual nucleic acid amplification techniques (NAT) (ID-NAT) versus minipool NAT (MP-NAT) approaches to identify all relevant viremias in donors. Here, findings ID-NAT MP-NAT pools 96 samples were compared. Study design and methods From November 2017 January 2018, a total 10,141 allogenic donations from 7650 German donors screened presence HEV RNA using (96 samples) (RealStar RT-PCR Kit) compared (cobas assay) on fully automated cobas 6800 platform. Results Parallel MP (n = 122, samples/MP) both detected seven reactive pools. After pool resolution, 8 RNA-positive identified by in-house detection method, whereas 17 with assay. This resulted an incidence 1:1268 (0.079%) 1:597 (0.168%) screening. Conclusions frequency was approximately 50% higher if used MP-NAT. However, viral loads ID-NAT-only below 25 IU/mL will often not result transfusion-transmitted (TT-HEV) infection, taking into account known infectious dose 5.0E + 04 IU inevitably resulting TT-HEV infection. clinical relevance identification these low-level HEV-positive still require further investigation.