Incidence of silent hepatitis b and hcv genotype among chronic hepatitis c patients | ||||
Bulletin of Egyptian Society for Physiological Sciences | ||||
Article 21, Volume 27, Issue 1, June 2007, Page 329-344 PDF (465.96 K) | ||||
Document Type: Original Article | ||||
DOI: 10.21608/besps.2007.37170 | ||||
View on SCiNiTO | ||||
Authors | ||||
Fouad El-Debaky* 1; Mahasen Abdel Sattar1; Adel Al-Kholy1; Ibrahim Rageh2; Hossam Amin1 | ||||
1Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Benha University | ||||
2Department of Clinical Pathology & Hepatology, National Liver Institute† | ||||
Abstract | ||||
This multi-center study was designed as a trial to explore the frequency of silent hepatitis B infection among hepatitis C patients and to determine the prevalent genotype of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in these patients. The study comprised 45 patients with post-hepatitic liver cirrhosis. All patients gave blood samples for estimation of liver function tests and ELISA estimation of serum levels of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and anti-HCV antibodies; patients with HBsAg positive were excluded off the study. Qualitative detection of HCV RNA and HBV DNA by PCR (home-made PCR) and quantitative PCR for estimation of HCV viremia and HCV genotyping by RFLP technique were performed. The HCV-Ab was detected in all samples irrespective of its clinical severity class with a mean viremia level of 792336.7±400074.8; range: 134985-1957632 viral copy/ml as determined by quantitative PCR with a non-significant difference between clinical severity classes as regards viremia level. The HBV DNA was detected using qualitative PCR in 20 samples (44.4%); 4 class A, 7 class B and 9 class C samples with a significant increase of the frequency of silent HB in patients with class B (X2=5.446, p<0.01) and C (X2=8.154, p<0.001) in comparison to class A patients. Genotyping of HCV reported 41 samples (91.1%) with genotype-4 and 4 samples (8.9%) with genotype-1 with a prevalence rate of HCV genotype-4 was 91.1%. There was positive nonsignificant correlation between both HCV genotype and the presence of silent hepatitis B infection and clinical severity, however, using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis judged by the area under the curve (AUC) to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of detection of silent hepatitis B infection and identification of HCV genotype as predictors of severe hepatitis showed a nonspecific role for genotyping for prediction of severity with AUC=0.467, while the detection of HBV DNA using PCR in patients with HCV infection is a specific predictor of severity with AUC=0.617. It could be concluded that HCV genotype-4 is the most prevalent type in Egyptian Hepatitis C cirrhotic patients with an incidence of silent hepatitis B of 44.4% and its detection is a specific predictor of severe cirrhosis. | ||||
Keywords | ||||
Hepatitis; PCR; genotype | ||||
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