Approximately 5-10% of cases of cirrhosis and other chronic liver diseases are caused by chronic viral hepatitis B. The markers of the activity of such diseases are HBeAg and DNA of the virus in serum.
Unlike serological methods for the diagnosis of viral hepatitis C, where antibodies to HCV are detected, PCR can detect the presence of HCV RNA directly and quantify its concentration in the test material.
PCR is one of the methods of DNA diagnostics, which allows to increase the number of copies of the detected region of the genome (DNA) of bacteria or viruses by millions of times using the DNA polymerase enzyme.
