IRVINE, CA, Dec. 5, 2015--DiligenMed, Inc. is pleased to announce a novel, highly specific and sensitive blood and urine test system for one-step screening and diagnosis of active, or viremic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The research results were presented at the AASLD Liver Meeting on Nov 15-17, 2015 in San Francisco by Dr. Ke-Qin Hu, the inventor and Director of Hepatology Services, UC Irvine School of Medicine.
Chronic HCV infection affects approximately 170 million people worldwide, causes liver injury that could progress to cirrhosis and liver cancer. Recent research advances have made chronic hepatitis C a highly curable disease. However, studies have indicated significant deficit in HCV screening and diagnosis.
Current blood-based HCV testing requires two steps and can be expensive, inconvenient, and is not widely available or affordable globally. Dr. Hu indicated “Finding a more convenient, easy-to-use and cost-effective screening alternative is imperative, because HCV is significantly under-screened and under-diagnosed.”
“We have developed a novel HCV antigen test system with significantly improved sensitivity and specificity over current tests. Importantly, for the first time, we can use urine specimens for one-step screening and diagnosing HCV infection,” said Dr. Hu. “The results indicated our test system is highly sensitive and specific with 100% concordance to HCV RNA PCR test results, making one-step diagnosis of HCV infection possible, using either blood or urine samples.”
The ability to detect infection using urine rather than blood avoids needle stick and blood sample collection, an important feature of the invention, will greatly reduce the cost and necessary clinical infrastructure for screening and diagnosis, helping to promote widespread adoption of the test on a global scale.
Effective screening and diagnosis are critical for treatment and controlling transmission. Those who are HCV infected can now be cured to prevent further liver injury and complications, but only if they are diagnosed. The HCV antigen test system reported by Dr. Hu’s research team well meet the urgent needs in this field, and will provide a convenient and cost-effective one-step test that screens, detects and confirms HCV infections, an essential way to improve HCV screen and diagnosis globally.
We are very excited by this unique opportunity to contribute to advances in HCV screening and diagnosis by further developing this test system to clinical application soon. For further information, please contact Roger Sun, MD at 312 898 2068 or Email: diligenmed@gmail.com
