Discrepancy between Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay and Indeterminate Western Blot Analysis Results in Diagnosis of HIV Infection

Abstract

HIV has become a major global health concern and social problem. The two main method for confirmation of HIV infection are detection of viral nucleic acids by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), and Western Blot assay. HIV-indeterminate Western blotting (WB) results are typically obtained in WB confirmatory assays, and the number of indeterminate samples may increase with the detection of HIV infections, which will present considerable challenges for the management of HIV/AIDS. The objective of our study was to compare the quality of the results of HIV diagnosis by classical PCR and Indeterminate Western Blot Analysis Results, in order to contribute to the improvement of the care of People Living with HIV (PLHIV). 16 Indeterminate Western Blot Analysis Results specimen were reprocessed for Quantitative HIV nucleic acid analysis of which 7 specimen were positive. The result was highly insignificant (p> 0.05btween the two tests.

We concluded that the results of the HIV PCR made it possible to evaluate and compare the accuracy and precision of the HIV-indeterminate WB results as diagnosis technics. With insignificant difference between the two tests