Well Sharmon,,as this is a support forum(and one of the better ones I may add) I am not prepared to go back and forth with you on this anymore

Just a couple of things before I close out on this thread

I am very familiar with PHO (Public Health Ontario). When you stated you contacted OHP I thought you were possibly meaning OHIP ,however it was just that you transposed the letters.

Your last post is incorrect at a number of points You say 1) the lab does not store results <15iu/ml .
2) That Ontario seems to think that <15iu/ml isn't infected anymore and 3) that they do not report these results to the ordering Dr.

This is the PHO form to Doctors on what they provide:

HCV RNA Result Interpretation Comments
Detected Hepatitis C RNA
detected, <15 IU/mL
The result for HCV RNA is below the linear range of the
assay, and thus the exact value cannot be calculated
Not detected No detectable
Hepatitis C RNA
Refer to comments on laboratory report if follow-up
testing is required
2. Hepatitis C Genotype
Clinical Utility
Genotyping of HCV is useful in evaluating the likelihood of response to currently available antiviral therapy.
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One of the reasons I have responded here Sharmon is to possibly be of some help to you with advice as I have been involved with the medical system for approx. 60yrs in Ontario,20 of those involved with testing my HCV in various forms (RNA's ,viral loads done while treating,4 of which were done in the last 3 months ,resistance testing and more ) All done by PHO and results deciminated in a timely fashion.

The other reason I am responding is because I imagine there are a number of folks on this forum from Canada(Ontario in particular) thinking of treating and they should know that their testing will be done in a timely fashion and sent to their doctor when ordered.

I honestly don't know what the problem is with your particular tests however others should know reading your posts that it is certainly not the norm in Ontario

Again.. I wish you the best in this.

S

Hello Sharmon,

I understand you are frustrated with not being able to garner your results,however I believe your frustration is focused in the wrong spot(The Public Health Lab)

The link you added to your post from the Public Health Dept. and what you have interpreted from it seems to be incorrect.

You say that they do not send results that show <15 iu/ml or <500iu/ml on a DBS.

Your misinterpretation of that is in the fact that they put that in the "Results Information" and how they then send that off to the doctor who ordered the test.

In other words if a result is <15iu/ml they can not give an exact Viral load #. they will just say DET. <15 as they are unable to quantify it below 15. It has nothing to do with them not sending the result to the Doctor.
Also ,this particular lab will say HCV Not Detected if they can not see any virus whatsoever.

However ,again it has nothing to do them not sending results out. They send results out in Ontario in between 4-10 days depending on their volume of tests to run.

I would be contacting my Dr. if I was you and ask him to pass on your results to you (that is if he/she ran them when you think they did) and get this cleared up with them before you go off spending all kinds of money to get the same test done in the U.S.

Your response that Canada doesn't care about running these tests and getting them to the doctors in a timely fashion ,in my humble opinion is just incorrect.

Best of luck with all this

S

Hi Doctor,

Possibly…….however I don’t believe that is the case. I am treated at a very large clinic where there are many doctors treating HCV and my doctor is not the head of that dept.

I have had many occasions to chat with fellow patients about how they are doing ,where they are at in the process and we have discussed many times how our tests are going

Their experiences are similar to mine and many are not treated by my particular doctor.

It may be though that because this clinic is in a very large urban area and the Public health Lab (that is very close by and does this particular testing) that results are diseminated differently.

The Poster may live in a more rural area and possibly things are handled differently there.

In any event I wish you well Sharmon with this. As others have mentioned it must be frustrating waiting for results for these crucial tests .

Good luck

S

Hi Sharmon,

I find this odd about your not being able to get tested. I am also in Canada and I have had no problem getting tested by PCR on numerous occasions.

I had a PCR when starting treatment ,again at the 4 weeks,8 weeks and just the other day at 12 weeks and will have another at EOT.

Plus all my results have been posted to me online within 4 -5 days of the test being done.

Sounds to me like possibly your doctor is not properly advocating for you?

I wish you the best of luck..

S

Best of luck Nick on obtaining your meds. Dr Freeman has been a tremendous help to me on obtainining what I need for my last 4 weeks. The staff at GP2U is great.

S