serum cccdna tests available at research level

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166093406002758
http://www.cmj.org/periodical/PDF/201151957254970.pdf
http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/8576/Kristie%20Bloom%20(0210575T)%20MSc%20Dissertation%202010.pdf?sequence=2

please check if there is any lab or university where we might have these tests, it wil be very difficult to see them around soon since they show how poor and useless are expensive Nucs produced by US drug makers (and thanksfully copied in india)

[stef2011]

chinese research (and asian in general) is helping very much in the study of hbv.this study is very very important and we should find labs to make this test like they did for CFS patients where they made a specialized lab by donations

http://www.cmj.org/periodical/PDF/201151957254970.pdf

The main target organ of HBV
infection is the liver; however, recent studies revealed
that the virus has extensive  reservoirs of extrahepatic
replication.
1
HBV proteins and nucleic acids have been
found in a number of non-hepatic tissues or cells,
including lymph nodes, spleen, bone marrow, kidney,
colon, stomach, periadrenal ganglia, skin, thyroid,
pancreas, testis, ovaries, brain, heart, lung, peripheral
blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and endothelial
progenitor cells.
2-11
Unlike the liver, the replication of
HBV in these non-hepatic cells is unclear. Because
cccDNA is a template for the replication of HBV, the
presence of cccDNA in PBMCs and marrow mononuclear
cells (MMNCs) demonstrates not only the infection of
PBMC and MMNC by HBV, but also the replication of
HBV in these cells.


Several methods are currently available to detect HBV
cccDNA in liver tissues
5,12-14
and increasing attention is
being paid to the presence of cccDNA in PBMCs. In the
present study, a nested real-time quantitative polymerase
chain reaction (RT-PCR) protocol was modified to detect
cccDNA in both PBMCs and MMNCs. This method was
used to evaluate the effectiveness of antiviral drugs in the
clearance of HBV and monitor therapeutic efficacy.


In the treatment of hepatitis B, only the clearance of
template for HBV DNA replication (i.e., clearance of
cccDNA) can completely cure hepatitis B to achieve a
favorable outcome. In this study, we established a
high-sensitive nest real-time quantitative PCR assay for
detecting hepatitis B virus cccDNA in PBMCs and
MMNCs, which may serve as an invaluable tool for
detecting cccDNA in hepatitis B patients, evaluating the
severity of liver damage and the state of HBV infection,
selecting an appropriate treatment strategy, evaluating the
efficacy of antiviral drugs, indicating when to stop the
treatment, and predicting the prognosis.

[stef2011]

http://www.contractlaboratory.com/labclass/outsource_requests_testing.cfm?testing_type=clinical

what about using this service?what do you think?

[StephenCastlecrag]

These extrahepatic pool of cccDNA is sure going to complicate things. We need research to prove whether these cccDNA is used as a template to produce HBV virions.

[stef2011]

nature doesn t make anything useless, they are the reservoir....any decrease in these numbers paralled by hbsag decrease would be very meaningful

i asked pisa but i dont know yet if they do it, they said somewhere in germany they do at research university