Hepatitis C Antibody Test?

I went to the doctor yesterday for my blood work results and he told me that I tested positive for Hepatitis C. The lab work says that the Hepatitis C Antibody is reactive with a signal to cut-off of 3.11 H. Does anyone know what this means?

I found that the signal-to-cutoff ratio is (<3.8) to test positive. My ratio is 3.11. So, that means the ratio is low, right?

The antibody test is a screening test. This means that a positive test means you are more likely the have the disease, but it is not the definitive test. There will be a number of 'false positives', that is, people who have a positive hep C antibody test, but do not have hepatitis C on further testing.

The signal to cut off ratio is the optical density of your blood sample over the optical density of the cut off point for that assay. Don't worry about that. What you need to know, is that the higher the ratio, the more likely it is that the test is truly positive.

However, in terms of the actual numbers used, I think that depends on what assay the lab is using, so I couldn't tell you. I suspect (but it's a guess) that the 'H' stands for high, but I don't know how likely a value of 3.11 is to be positive, because it depends on the lab.

Does this make sense- let me know if not, I'll try and explain differently.

I found some good info here.

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