Hep C Signal to Cutoff

[ec313]

I had a Hepatitis Screen. Results are below:

Hep A IgM        Non-Reactive
Hep B Core, IgM     Non-Reactive
Hep Bs Ag     Non-Reactive
Hep C Ab       Non-Reactive
Hep C Signal to Cutoff      0.42

The 0.42 number concerns me as it seems high. Six months ago, shortly after a possible exposure, I had a Hep C test that came back as <0.1. Could this be a building response to the infection?

I am not sure what to think. Please advise.

[mkh9]

Well, not 10.0 but maybe .7 or whatever. If you see what I mean.
regards,
mkh9

[mkh9]

Hi, no the signal to cutoff has nothing to do with your results. Your results are "non-reactive" meaning negative. So you are negative. The cutoff changes with each test depending on the background "noise" so to speak of the test. It is how they adjust the results. It depends on how high the background is when the run the test. It is not the patients result. It is a comparative result. They probably shouldn't include it in the persons results because the average person doesn't know what it means. I think they assume a doctor or laboratory person is reading the test results.

So the background may be 0.5 and anything above that may be positive anything below 0.3 maybe negative. They use some type of reference range to determine whether it is positive. It doesn't matter that it changes with time. It can be 10.0 the next time and they will adjust the results based on that run.

Hope this helps.
mkh9