Anti-HCV antibody titer highly predicts HCV viremia in patients with hepatitis B virus dual-infection

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17 May 2021

PONE-D-21-14163

PLOS ONE

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: 1. Please mention if patients had history of anti-HBV therapy including interferon therapy.

2. As for patients with dual-infection, did all have HBV DNA positive? Please mention if there were any patient who had HBV DNA negative. Is there difference in HCV viral load between mono-infected and dual-infected patients?

3. Please mention whether all patients with HCV viremia were confirmed to have persistent infection.

4. Please provide HCV RNA viral load according to the anti-HCV antibody titer.

5. Please mention to what extent the different method of anti-HCV measurement affects the anti-HCV titer and cut-off value according to the previous reports.

6. In the discussion, please elaborate factors affecting low anti-HCV titer with HCV viremia or high anti-HCV titer with HCV negativity.

7. The method of HCV genotyping is not described.

Reviewer #2: In the manuscript titled “ Anti-HCV antibody titer highly predicts HCV viremia in patients with hepatitis B virus dual-infection”, the authors showed the valuable titer to predict Hepatitis C viremia in patiets with HCV mono-infection.

The authors defined HCV infection as HCV-Ab positive. I think that the definition of patients with HBV infection should include not only HBsAg positive but also HBsAb or HBcAb positive. There are patients whose HBsAg are negative but HBV-DNA are positive. HBsAg negative cannot exclude HBV infection.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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