ABSTRACT
Hepatitis C virus is a newly discovered threat to Egyptian people. It carries a great risk of chronic hepatic disease and hepato cellular carcinoma. The aim of this work is to study the role of HCV in the causation of acute hepatitis in pediatric patients without history of parenteral exposure and the accuracy of the currently used methods of diagnosis. This study was conducted on 40 pediat patients showing clinical features of hepatitis, another group of almost the same age and sex comprised 25 apparently healthy persons were also studied as a control group. All the subjects were clinically evaluated to elucidate signs of hepatitis,. Serum bilirubin [total, direct] levels, ALT and AST values were measured to confirm the diagnosis. HBsAg was searched for HBV infection then, HCV markers were measured using 3[rd] generation ELISA for detection of HCV antibodies and RT-PCR for detection of HCV-RNA. HCV was detected in 7.5% of patients with manifestations of hepatitis versus 8% of the control group as determined by ELISA. However, PCR revealed 5% and 0%, in the patient and the control group respectively. ELISA positivity was found to be correlated with elevated serum transaminases but no significant correlation was seen with PCR. The HCV ELISA was found to be a good negative test and its specificity tended to increase with increased prevalence of infection. A significant correlation was found between IgM Antibodies against [S.mansoni egg Soluble antigen] and PCR positivity