Table 3. Characteristics of Assays for Quantification of
Table 3. Plasma HIV-1 RNA
Assay
Range (copies/mL)
Inter-assay variation
(log10 SD)
US RT-PCRa (HIV-1 Monitor 1.5) 50 - 75,000 0.12 - 0.22
bDNAb (Quantiplex 3.0) 50 - 500,000 0.05 - 0.17
NASBAc (NucliSens) 80 - 8,000,000 0.038 - 0.261
     
a, ultra-sensitive reverse transcriptase - PCR assay; b, branched DNA assay; c, nucleic acid and sequence-based amplification. Data compiled from Lin et al J Clin Microbiol. 1998;36:835-9; Erice et al J Clin Microbiol. 2000;38:2837-45; and Murphy et al . J Clin Microbiol. 2000;38:4034-41.