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Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B Virus Infection in Different Hemodialysis Units in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Solange U Busek; Élio H Babá; Hélcio A Tavares Filho; Lermíno Pimenta; Abraão Salomão; Rodrigo Corrêa-Oliveira & Guilherme C Oliveira
Abstract
The prevalence, virological and epidemilogical aspects of
the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections vary
among hemodialysis patients in different countries. Aiming at analyzing
these aspects of HCV and HBV infections in hemodialysis patients in Belo
Horizonte, MG, Brazil, we studied three hemodialysis units including 434
patients. Serology was used to detect anti-HCV and HBsAg. Reverse trancriptase
nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-nested-PCR) of the 5'-noncoding
region was used to detect circulating HCV RNA and restriction fragment length
polymorphism analysis for genotyping. Seroprevalence varied from 26.5% to
11.1% for hepatitis C and from 5.9% to 0% for hepatitis B. Risk factors
observed for HBV and/or HCV infections were the number of patients per dialysis
unit, duration of treatment, number of clinics attended, number of blood
units transfused, and lower level scholarity. Alanine aminotransferase levels
were altered with a higher frequency in HBV or HCV seropositive patients.
Half of ten patients, negative for anti-HCV, had detectable viremia by RT-nested-PCR,
indicating that this technique should be used to confirm infections in this
group of patients. The HCV genotype 1 was the most frequently observed,
followed by the genotype 2, but no correlation was detected between genotype
and clinical or epidemiological data.
Keywords
alanine aminotransferase - hepatitis C virus genotype - hemodialysis - hepatitis B - hepatitis C - prevalence - Belo Horizonte - Brazil
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