Background Screening of blood donors in many countries is based on the use of serologic assays to detect specific anti-HCV antibodies (HCV Ab), but it lacks detection sensitivity. So, HCV RNA detection using the current gold standard real-time PCR is a must to rule out HCV infection with the main disadvantage being of high cost. HCV core antigen (HCV-c-Ag) immunoassay is proposed as a more cost efficient alternative to HCV RNA detection with PCR. Aim To evaluate the effectiveness of HCV-c-Ag detection as a cheap alternative to HCV RNA (PCR) in diagnosis of HCV infection in blood donors who are HCV Ab negative. Methods and results One hundred eighty-six volunteer blood donors who tested negative for HCV Ab were examined for HCV-c-Ag. Seven cases out of these 186 cases were HCV-c-Ag positive (4%). HCV RNA detection (PCR technique) was done to 30 cases (seven cases who test positive for HCV-c-Ag and 23 cases who test negative). Six out of the seven cases who were HCV-c-Ag positive (86%) were HCV RNA positive. Twenty-two cases out of the 23 cases who were HCV-c-Ag negative (96%) were HCV RNA negative. Conclusion HCV-c-Ag detection is an efficient method for diagnosis of HCV infection during screening of blood donors with high specificity (95.6%) and high negative predictive value (95.6%).

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Background: Asthma is a chronic lung disease characterized by wheezy chest, resulting from allergic inflammation and hyperresponsivness of the bronchi to various stimuli. Microbial exposures have been suggested to confer protection from allergic disorders and reduced exposures to gastrointestinal microbes have been proposed as an explanation for the increase in asthma prevalence and severity. Since the general prevalence of Helicobacter pylori has been decreasing, we hypothesized that H.pylori status may be inversely related to the severity of asthma. Aim of Study: This study was coducted to evaluate the relation between Helicobacter pylori infection and bronchial asthma in children. Patients and Methods: The study was carried out on sixty children with asthma who attended to the outpatient clinic of Chest and Allergic Diseases, Pediatric Department, Tanta University Hospital. Also, it included thirty apparently healthy children with matched age and sex who served as a control group. All studied children were subjected to full history taking, complete physical examination, pulmonary function test and detection of H.pylori antigen in stool by ELISA. Data was analyzed by using SPSS. Results: There is significant association between severity of asthma and result of H.pylori so with increase severity of asthma there is decrease in percentage of positive H.pylori results. As regard pulmonary function tests (FEV 1 and PEFR), there was statistically significant difference between positive H.pylori asthmatic and negative H.pylori asthmatic children. There was no statistically significant difference between patient's sex or age and results of H.pylori infection test. Conclusion: There is a significant inverse association between severity of asthma and result of H.pylori infection (by H.pylori Ag in stool). This association is not affected by ages and sex of patients.