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The risk of hepatitis B transmission from staff to patients in hemodialysis units–‐an overrated problem?
Author(s) -
LaBrecque Douglas R.,
Dhand Arun K.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
hepatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.488
H-Index - 361
eISSN - 1527-3350
pISSN - 0270-9139
DOI - 10.1002/hep.1840010505
Subject(s) - medicine , hemodialysis , hbsag , prodrome , asymptomatic , hbeag , hepatitis b , transmission (telecommunications) , dialysis , asymptomatic carrier , intensive care medicine , hepatitis b virus , immunology , virus , psychiatry , psychosis , electrical engineering , engineering
The staff and patients in hemodialysis units have the greatest hospital risk of acquiring hepatitis B (HB) infection. We followed the patients of two dialysis nurses in two different dialysis units. One nurse dialyzed 19 patients a total of 50 times during the prodrome of acute HB. The second nurse was a known, asymptomatic carrier of HBsAg who was also HBeAg(+) and anti‐HBc(+). Over a 2‐year period, she dialyzed 30 patients a total of 742 times. Neither group of patients showed evidence of having acquired HB, suggesting that the risk of HB transmission from staff to patient is low even in the high‐risk setting of a dialysis unit and a presumably highly infectious HBeAg(+) chronic carrier. In our study, the risk in this latter setting was less than 0.0040 (binomial probability p < 00.05). The data do not support restricting care of patients by health workers who are chronic carriers of the virus.