Molecular point of care testing for hepatitis C: available technologies, pipeline and promising future directions

Hepatitis C (HCV) remains a major public health problem, despite the availability of effective treatments. In many areas, the ability to diagnose HCV infection at the point of care is key to scaling up access to care and treatment. To achieve this, an accurate, easy-to-use and affordable diagnostic tool is required - this would enable decentralized testing and the creation of one-stop centers to eliminate gaps in the care cascade, which would help reach the millions of people with undiagnosed HCV in low- and middle-income countries and high-risk populations in high income countries. In this review, we examine the current state of point-of-care molecular technologies, the advantages and limitations of currently available devices (both near- and true-point-of-care), the potential of molecular testing to transform diagnostic medicine in the future, and the challenges that need to be addressed for broader adoption of this technology in routine clinical practice.