Hi Jean Marc and welcome,

Great to hear you have been able to get treatment. That’s a great result after 4 weeks. You are well on your way to being undetected and probably are already given that test was a while ago.

I can’t say for certain what is going on in regard to the different length of time it is taking to get results. But based on what I know about how VL testing works in Australia, I can make an educated guess.

VL testing in Australia is only done in a small number of pathology labs (think it’s a somewhat complicated test and maybe requires someone with specific training to do it). I live in Tasmania and, as far as I know, no labs here do the test. I believe Royal Hobart Hospital send their VL blood tests to a lab in Melbourne on the Australian mainland and I think I read that the pathology lab Doc Freeman uses send theirs to Brisbane, also on the mainland. And I think in both cases the samples are only sent off one or two days a week. Because of this my results usually take from 10 – 14 days to come back. For people living on the mainland, especially in a city that has a lab that does the test themselves and doesn’t have to send it away, it can probably be quicker.

It sounds like the same thing may be going on in Thailand. The first test was quick because you went to Bangkok. Maybe you also had the blood drawn on just the right day when they were running through a batch of samples soon after so it came back even quicker than expected. My guess is that on your island they have to send the samples to the Thai mainland (either Bangkok or some other large metropolitan centre) so the results take longer to come back. In other words, the time it takes to get results can depend on what lab you use, whether they do the test themselves or send the sample away, and how often the lab that can do the actual VL tests does them.

This is just speculation but it seems to fit with what I know about VL testing times in Australia. Hope this helps.

Hi Jeanmarc, and welcome to the forum.

My viral load tests are done at a major testing lab in London (The Doctors Lab). If I have my blood drawn on a Tuesday at my clinic in Manchester, they have the result on Friday the same week. So, three days is a perfectly reasonable timescale for this test. The longer times that get quoted are to do with this particular test only being done one or two times a week in many labs, and the logistics with the physical blood sample, and maybe posting the results rather than emailing them.

Hello Jean Marc,

There is another reason why the result time can be different each time. This is because there are several different tipes of RNA tests even among quantitative.

Look at this link (yes, in Russian, but "RNA" and "quantitative" in English.) for price list for commercial pathology clinic. You will see three different quantitative tests and then genotype and qualitative packages of tests.

https://www.invitro.ru/search/?q=HCV-RNA

The prices for three different quantitative tests alone are 2850, 9800,and 17 600 rubles (AU$55, $AU193, $AU346).
Qualitative 692 rubles $AU14.
Genotype 1045 rubles ($AU21)
Quantitative plus genotype 3500 rubles ($AU69).

These tests are of different kinds and accuracy, which is why the difference in prices. Probably the time takes is different too. I dont know if the tests are faster for more accuracy or what I am just reporting the differences.

So these are the facts.

Maybe an interesting question is how much did you pay for the tests. Were the quicker ones more expensive? Of course in your case is the question of distance to actual test place as well..

But good luck to you in getting a treatment.

(Found you can do translate on this page if it helps here)

Ask Doc James, It may mean negativ or UND

The dynamic range of the assay may extends from 12 to 100,000,000 IU/ml, So < 12 means UND The result < 12 should be followed with a Detected or Undetected

Please post the data part of your result.

The < 12 means we can't count it. This would usually be followed by Undetected or Detected - it can be too low to count, but still detectable, or too low to count because it is undetectable.

This assay has a result range of 15 to 100,000,000 IU/mL (1.18 log to 8.00 log IU/mL) for quantification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA in serum.

An “Undetected” result indicates that the HCV is absent in the patient’s serum specimen.

A result of “<15 IU/mL (<1.18 log IU/mL)" indicates that HCV RNA is detected, but the HCV RNA level present cannot be quantified accurately below this lower limit of quantification of this assay. When clinically indicated, follow-up testing with this assay is recommended in 1 to 2 months. To assess response-guided therapy eligibility, an "Undetected" result is required, and a result of "<15 IU/mL mL (<1.18 log IU/mL)" should not be considered equivalent to an "Undetected" result.

A quantitative result expressed in IU/mL and log IU/mL indicates the degree of active HCV viral replication in the patient. Monitoring HCV RNA levels over time is important to assess disease progression and/or monitoring a patient's response to anti-HCV therapy.

A result of ">100,000,000 IU/mL (>8.00 log IU/mL)” indicates the presence of active HCV viral replication, and the HCV RNA level present cannot be quantified accurately above this upper limit of quantification of this assay.

Here is more than you could ever want to know: http://jcm.asm.org/content/51/2/571.full

The second test is using a different assay (not specified) and once again does not make note of Detected/Undetected status.

I had a chuckle at the ” Sex :- ” bit. I guess you’re male.
Sorry.