Labor and Cost Requirements of Two Commercial Assays for Qualitative Molecular Detection of Hepatitis C Virus

The Bayer transcription-mediated amplification (TMA) and the Roche PCR Amplicor version 2.0 molecular assays for the qualitative detection of hepatitis C virus were compared for cost, hands-on time, assay duration, and complexity. The TMA assay compares well to PCR and may be especially useful for laboratories with large numbers of test requests.