OBJECTIVETo compare the commercial diagnostic reagent available in China for hepatitis C virus ( HCV) IgG antibody detection in order to provide some useful information for HCV prevention.

METHODSThe HCV-IgG detection reagents produced by six different Enterprises named A, B, C, D, E and F were chosen and applied to detect 160 HCV specious sera samples. HCV-IgG reagent from ABBOTT was adopted as gold-standard and the samples in gray zone were determined by RIBA method finally.

RESULTS160 sera samples comprised 88 positive samples and 72 negative samples. The total conformity ranged from 88.13% to 98.13% and the Youden indexes ranged from 0.74 to 0.96 when the reagents from six different Enterprises were compared with gold-standard. The highest conformity was 98.13%, observed in D reagent with the highest Youden index of 0.96.

CONCLUSIONThe total conformity rates were more than 88% when the HCV-IgG antibody detection reagents from six different Enterprises were compared with ABBOTT reagent. It was highly conformable. However, some reagent proved to be less conformable in negative samples detection.