If a patient has clinical signs of hepatitis, he needs to undergo a series of diagnostic measures, including examining the biological fluid for markers of various types of viruses. The study will help to detect infectious agents and determine their type. A blood test for hepatitis will show the presence of the disease even in the case when its manifestations are absent. Timely diagnosis of the disease increases the chances of stopping the pathology at an early stage of development.
Description of the disease
Hepatitis refers to diseases of various origins that affect the liver. All types of illness are divided into viral and non-viral. The latter include radiation, autoimmune and toxic varieties of the pathological process. Hepatitis of viral origin is an infectious type of disease.
Illness can leakin acute, chronic and diffuse form, when the lesion spreads to the entire organ. All patients with hepatitis are given a blood test.
Preparing for analysis
Preparatory measures include:
- Donating blood on an empty stomach in the morning. The last meal before biomaterial sampling should take place at least 8 hours before.
- It is possible to take blood during the daytime or in the evening. In this situation, it is not recommended to eat food five hours before the study.
- You can not only eat, but also drink, including coffee, tea, juices. Only a glass of water without gas is allowed.
- For two days before the study, you need to exclude fried and fatty foods, as well as stop drinking alcohol.
- Don't smoke one hour before giving blood.
- It is not recommended to take biological fluid for analysis after ultrasound, X-ray and other instrumental studies. The same goes for physiotherapy and massages.
- During the day before donating blood, you should not take medications, and you should also exclude intense physical activity, including walking up stairs and running. Emotional overexcitation is also contraindicated.
- If medications cannot be stopped, the doctor should be informed of all of them.
- It is necessary to be in a state of complete rest for at least 15 minutes before taking the biomaterial.
Patients are advised to donate blood in the morning, as readings can change throughout the day, which can skew resultsresearch.
When to donate blood?
A blood test for hepatitis A is prescribed at the first manifestations of pathology. The maximum concentration of antibodies to this virus is reached within 30 days after infection. Further, over the course of one year, their level decreases until normal results.
It is recommended to test for hepatitis C no earlier than six weeks after the alleged infection with the virus.
Blood sampling
The most optimal way to take a blood test for hepatitis in a medical office. Although in some situations a service is provided for the collection of material at home. During the procedure, disposable sterile instruments and materials are used. When taking biological fluid from a vein, specialists adhere to the following algorithm of actions:
- To stop the blood flow in the vessel, a medical tourniquet is applied to the patient in the forearm area. This allows you to fill the elbow creases with blood, the veins become bulging and easier to hit with a needle.
- The skin at the site of the proposed puncture is treated with an antiseptic, usually alcohol through cotton wool or a bandage.
- A needle is inserted into the cavity of the vein, to which a syringe is connected. Sometimes the blood is immediately collected in special containers or test tubes.
- When the needle is inserted into the vein, the tourniquet is removed.
- When enough blood is taken for examination, the medical instrument is smoothly pulled out of the soft tissues of the arm.
- To the injection sitea cotton swab slightly moistened with alcohol is applied.
- To avoid the formation of a hematoma and stop the bleeding from the resulting wound faster, you should press the swab to the needle insertion site, bend your arm at the elbow and hold it for a while.
Safe and painless procedure
When blood is drawn by an experienced he althcare professional, the patient does not experience pain during or after the procedure. In addition, it is a completely safe manipulation.
If a person is afraid of injections or does not tolerate the sight of blood, a specialist always has a bottle of ammonia on hand. When the patient loses consciousness, they give him a sniff of cotton wool soaked in ammonia.
The blood collected for testing must be delivered to the laboratory no later than two hours after taking from the patient.
What can be the result of a blood test for hepatitis?
Transcription of analysis
If the result of the blood test is negative, this indicates the absence of antibodies of the virus in the human body. However, it is impossible to completely exclude the presence of an infectious infection based on the results of a single analysis of the biomaterial. This is due to the fact that the resistance of the immune system is different for each person, as well as the long incubation period of many infectious pathologies, including those caused by hepatitis.
Only a repeated negative result of a blood test for antibodies to this disease confirms the absence of the disease. To get the mostreliable results, both studies are recommended to be carried out in the same clinic.
Results depending on the type of ailment
Blood test results depend on the type of hepatitis:
- Hepatitis A. The method of testing for the presence of IgG virus is called immunochemiluminescent. If the blood test for hepatitis is positive, we can conclude that the disease is in an acute form of the course or that the pathology has just been transferred. Normally, the IgG antibody index is less than 1.0.
- Hepatitis B. If LgM antibodies are detected in the patient's blood, a positive test result is recorded. Even traces of the virus indicate the presence of hepatitis B in a chronic or acute form.
- Hepatitis C, D, E and G. The disease with the value E is similar to the form A and is of particular danger to female representatives during pregnancy. Hepatitis D in most cases is accompanied by a type B disease. With the letter G, it is similar to C, but it is less severe and does not pose such a danger to human he alth and life. In this case, the study is carried out by enzyme immunoassay.
Hepatitis C
This is an anthroponotic viral disease with parenteral and instrumental infection. Its penetration is also possible through damaged skin and mucous membranes, the most dangerous transmission factor is blood. Often occurs in the form of post-transfusion hepatitis with a predominance of anicteric forms and is prone to chronicity.
What to doif a blood test revealed hepatitis C?
The first thing to say to those who have received a positive result is not to panic and despair.
There are several reasons for this:
- Blood tests sometimes give false positives.
- Anti-HCV-total as a result of the analysis shows, among other things, the presence of an infection in the past, which means that self-healing could occur.
- Hepatitis C is a disease that can be treated and controlled.
It should be borne in mind that within 6 weeks after infection, a blood test in a patient with hepatitis C will be negative, since the viruses are in the incubation period. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct several tests over a certain period of time. Normal indicators are the absence of antibodies in the blood. Positive values will be maintained throughout treatment and immediately after recovery.
Research for non-viral forms of hepatitis
If non-viral hepatitis is suspected, a blood test is performed for the following indicators:
- Bilirubin. Normal values are 5-21 µmol/l. Elevated results indicate the presence of a pathological process in the liver.
- Fibrinogen. This protein can be in the range of 1.8-3.5 g/l. When the liver is damaged, fibrinogen levels fall far below normal.
- Protein of the general type in blood serum. Normal indicators vary between 66-83 g / l. Against the background of hepatitis, the albumin content decreases.
- Enzymes of the protein type. The norm is determined by the indicators of ALT and AST, which should be up to 50 and up to 75 units, respectively. Hepatitis increases these enzymes to abnormal results.
Checking for the disease is carried out in every patient who has complaints of pain in the liver, as well as in those who suffer from icteric syndrome. Blood testing for hepatitis and HIV is often done at the same time.
Blood testing for HIV and syphilis
Autoimmune diseases that often accompany hepatitis are diagnosed through a blood test using the polymerase chain reaction method or using an enzyme immunoassay. Both methods are quite accurate and informative.
The most common method is enzyme immunoassay. This study involves the detection of antibodies to certain pathologies in human blood serum. In most cases, the incubation period of the disease is up to one and a half months. In every tenth patient, the pathology manifests itself after 3-6 months, and in some cases at a later date. It is considered optimal to re-donate blood every three months after the alleged infection.
What other blood test for hepatitis, syphilis and HIV is done? In addition to the above methods, the molecular method, PCR, has become widely used in medicine. When diagnosing HIV or syphilis, its principle is to study the polymerase chain reaction. This method is the only way to early diagnosisinfections. Conduct a study in newborns if the woman was infected at the time of delivery. In addition, PCR can detect pathogenic viruses even during the incubation period, when antibodies are absent in the body. Thus, it is possible to prescribe therapy in a timely manner and reduce the risk of disease progression.
The result of the PCR test may be negative, positive or doubtful, in which it is necessary to repeat the test after a while.
Specialists believe that it is wrong to diagnose HIV based on a single blood test. This is due to the fact that indicators in the biomaterial may increase for other reasons not related to pathological processes. So, an allergic reaction can provoke the production of antigens in the body, which give a positive value in a blood test. Therefore, a prerequisite for diagnosis is the re-delivery of the biomaterial.
