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Clinical Significance of Hepatitis GB Virus C Infection in Alcoholic Liver Disease
Author(s) -
Tsutsumi Mikihiro,
Sawada Makoto,
Takase Shujiro,
Chen WunBil,
Ueshima Yasuhiro,
Tsuchishima Mutsumi,
Shimanaka Koshi,
Itoh Tohru,
Kawahara Hiromu
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/j.1530-0277.1997.tb04514.x
Subject(s) - alcoholic liver disease , alcoholic hepatitis , cirrhosis , medicine , gastroenterology , liver biopsy , liver disease , hepatitis , hepatitis c virus , fibrosis , hepatitis c , fatty liver , virus , disease , biopsy , immunology
Recently, hepatitis GB virus C (HGBV‐C) has been recovered from patients with non‐A‐E hepatitis. However, it has been unclear whether HGBV‐C may be related to the development of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) or not. In this study, we determined HGBV‐C RNA in sera from alcoholic patients without markers for hepatitis C and B viruses to evaluate the role of HGBV‐C in ALD. Serum samples were obtained from 68 patients with ALD and 40 nonalcoholic patients with chronic type C liver disease. HGBV‐C RNA was detected in only 3 of 68 (4.4%) patients with ALD, in 2 of 27 patients with hepatic fibrosis, and in 1 of 5 patients with chronic hepatitis. There was no HGBV‐C RNA in sera from patients with fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, or cirrhosis. Serum levels of AST, ALT, and γ‐glutamyltranspeptidase in alcoholic patients with, as well as without, HGBV‐C RNA decreased to normal levels after abstinence. In addition, an inflammatory change was not observed in liver biopsy specimens obtained from two HGBV‐C‐positive patients with alcoholic hepatic fibrosis. Our results clearly suggest that the prevalence of HGBV‐C infection in patients with ALD is rare and that HGBV‐C may not play an important role in the development of liver disease in alcoholics.