Diagnosis is the key in the way of treatment..

There are various methods to diagnose the diseases. Diagnosis is the key in the way of treatment. Physicians need investigations for diagnosis and further treatment. they prescribe tests n send him to pathology laboratory. the workers of pathological laboratory apply test on required specimen collected from patient.there are many viral and bacterial diseases in pakistan e.g Hepatitis, flue, dengue, typhoid, tuberculosis etc.

now a days the major issue is hepatitis. hepatitis has many further types e.g hepatitis A, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, hepatitis D etc. this difference only make on the behave of pathological tests.
the basic tests include complete blood count (CBC) , liver function test(LFT,s), HBsAg and Anti HCV.
Diagnostic tests for HCV are used to prevent infection through screening of donor blood and plasma, to establish the clinical diagnosis and to make better decisions regarding medical management of a patient. Hepatitis C infection is usually diagnosed in two steps using blood tests. The first step is a screening test called ELISA (Enzyme Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay), which tests for an antibody against hepatitis C. (ELISA is often shortened to “EIA”.) Antibodies are the cells that your body makes when something enters your body that it does not recognize. Antibodies can tell you that the virus has been in the blood, but they do not tell you if the virus is still there. After exposure to a person with hepatitis C, it can take several weeks to develop hepatitis C antibody. A negative ELISA should be repeated in 3 months if the person has had an exposure.

Sometimes the ELISA can be false positive. False positive means the test is positive but the person does not have hepatitis C. It is important to do a second test that will confirm the results of a positive ELISA test.

A recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA) that identifies antibodies which react with individual HCV antigens is often used as a supplemental test for confirmation of a positive EIA result.

Testing for HCV circulating by amplification tests RNA (e.g. polymerase chain reaction or PCR, branched DNA assay) is also being utilized for confirmation of serological results as well as for assessing the effectiveness of antiviral therapy. A positive result indicates the presence of active infection and a potential for spread of the infection and or/the development of chronic liver disease.