You’re welcome!

EDIT: It seems that they are doing only qualitative!

Hi all, I asked Dr James about this because the assay range on my first test was 30-1000000000
I came in at <30
No it wasn't UND
I wondered why a huge public hospital only had such a threshold
All my questions, those you ask here were answered
I also talked to Emilio
A week after the hospital result I saw my GP armed with the information from James and Em and my GP rang around the path labs here.
He located the most accurate lower limit quantitative testing lab and the best qualitative
He ordered the PCR RNA and the regular VL
This second test did show an assay of 15-100000000 and the qualitative csme in as UND
Well nothing showed anywhere
Maybe you can ask for your doc to ring around too?
I'm my GPs first DAA patient and he defers to the info from Dr J and my prescriber, a specialist in another state from me! The hospital had just written more of the same original test I mentioned for my 8 weeks anyway!
So yesterday I rang them, explaining that I had an UND via private path and of course had to put up with the third degree but hey, I don't have to do the three hour round trip plus waiting for hours there plus paying a stupid amount for parking this Friday yay! I'm just going in for my appointment next Friday the 15th end of week 9, and the nurse said any follow up bloods can be done that day if necessary.
It seems that good GP support was the key for me to avoid this frustration you are discussing.
Cheers from Ariel hope you get what we all need re bloods xxxx

Quantitative VL tests are done using a few different ways of counting. Some LLOD are <12, <15, and <25. It depends on the exact quantitative test used. That is why they are supposed to put the test criteria on there. Usually it is right below the result.
Qualitative tests are either Detected, or Undetected. However, these tests can only see down to just under 5/ml, which is considered undetected. The last time I spoke with Dr Freeman, we discussed this. The rationale is if you have a level of <5, your body will get rid of it on it's own. If you were to get infected with <5, you probably would not go on to even contract Hepatitis. That is why a lot of people are still 'detected' at EOT, but go on to achieve SVR.
Dr Freeman, please clarify if I'm mistaken.

Exactly, that’s what I was saying DT

I’ve seen no research that suggests anything other then once you’re UD by week 12 you’ve a 97% chance
of SVR!

Is that right? – If so, that’s good news Hang on a sec, is that week 12 EOT or week 12 post tx?
Mind you there is just so much debate about all this, I still think everyone is still learning and data hasn’t caught up yet.

I think it is reasonable to expect a company offering tests to let you know what they’re paying for though – They ain’t cheap!

(edit) I also think it’s very hard for those who have previously failed tx – No doubt very traumatic, this whole thing’s traumatic really.

Hi all,

There seems to be a bit of confusion here.

LLOQ – is the lowest level they can accurately quantify down to, so if the test assay has an LLOQ of 15 then they can accurately say you had a result of 16 or 19 or 78 etc. Below 15 they can say that you were detected or undetected but if detected they can’t say accurately what it was, just that it was <15. Now at some point below 15 is the limit at which they can detect the virus. But as they can't measure that low they can't accurately tell you what it is. From what I've read it is though to be about 5-6 in the case of <15.
But from what I understand even with a quantitisation test they check first to see if they can detect the virus and if they can't then they don't run the grading process to determine what the actual level is because that would be pointless. So for an UND it is not <15 but rather a really low number well below that where they aren't fully sure of the level. Or equivalent of an UND via qualitisation.

Hope that makes sense?