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Prevalence of transfusion‐transmitted virus infection in patients on maintenance hemodialysis from New Delhi, India
Author(s) -
Chattopadhyay Saket,
Rao Sunita,
Das Bhudeb Chandra,
Singh Narinder Pratap,
Kar Premashis
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
hemodialysis international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.658
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1542-4758
pISSN - 1492-7535
DOI - 10.1111/j.1542-4758.2005.01154.x
Subject(s) - medicine , torque teno virus , viremia , hemodialysis , blood transfusion , virology , gastroenterology , virus , polymerase chain reaction , biology , biochemistry , gene
Transfusion‐transmitted virus (TTV) has been reported from a number of hemodialysis (HD) units from various countries throughout the world. TTV has been associated with liver diseases, viral hepatitis B, and C. Clinical details and information regarding TTV prevalence from India are insufficient. The prevalence and clinical significance of TTV infection were studied in New Delhi, India in HD patients. Serum samples were derived from 75 patients on maintenance HD, and 75 age‐ and sex‐matched voluntary blood donors were examined for TTV viremia by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using primers derived from UTR (A) region of the TTV genome. The prevalence of TTV DNA in patients on HD (83%) was significantly (p<0.05) higher than in blood donors (43%). Clinical background including the mean age, sex, mean duration of HD, and mean alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels did not differ significantly between TTV DNA‐positive and ‐negative HD patients. Fifty‐four (72%) TTV‐positive HD patients and 7 (56%) TTV‐negative HD patients had blood transfusion histories (p>0.05). Among TTV‐positive patients, Hepatitis B virus (HBV) co‐infection was present in 14.2% cases while hepatitis C virus (HCV) co‐infection was absent. Persistent elevation of ALT levels was observed in 7(9.3%) HD patients; 3 (43%) of them were TTV positive and 4 (57%) were TTV negative (p>0.05). All 3 TTV‐positive patients with elevated ALT levels were co‐infected with HBV. Patients with TTV infection alone showed normal ALT levels. Prevalence of TTV infection is high in North Indian patients on maintenance HD. Also, none of the exclusively TTV DNA‐positive patients had clinical or biochemical signs of liver disease. TTV seems to spread through parenteral routes. More often, TTV seems to be associated with parenterally transmitted virus HBV, indicating a parenteral mode of TTV transmission. The pathogenicity of TTV remains unclear from the present study.