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Hepatitis C virus infection in haemodialysis patients
Author(s) -
Roger S. D.,
Crewe E.,
Cunningham A.,
Harris D. C. H.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.596
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1445-5994
pISSN - 0004-8291
DOI - 10.1111/j.1445-5994.1991.tb02996.x
Subject(s) - medicine , virology , virus , hepatitis , hepatitis c virus , intensive care medicine , immunology
Antibody to hepatitis C has been variously detected in 1‐20% of haemodialysis patients in recent studies from overseas. To determine the frequency of antibodies to the C100‐3 protein of the hepatitis C virus (anti‐HCV) a cross‐sectional study was performed in 60 patients on maintenance haemodialysis in Western Sydney. Six patients (10%) were anti‐HCV seropositive. Four of the six anti‐HCV positive patients were also hepatitis B core antibody positive, compared with nine of 54 anti‐HCV negative patients ( p < 0.05). All anti‐HCV positive patients had received multiple blood transfusions. Serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) was not useful as a screening test. Recent evidence suggests that anti‐HCV seropositivity underestimates infectivity.