Hepatitis B often undetected, study says

December 22, 2004

Canadian Press

Monday, December 20, 2004 - Page A11

WINNIPEG -- Hepatitis B may be lurking in the general population at rates

higher than anyone suspected, Winnipeg researchers have suggested.

The liver disease is believed to infect less than 1 per cent of the Canadian

population, but University of Manitoba professor Gerald Minuk has reported

that standard tests miss most infections.

For every person in his study who tested positive on the standard test, four

or five more were found to be infected when a more expensive DNA-based test

was used.

However, Prof. Minuk noted that people whose infections show up only on the

more sophisticated test may be less likely to get sick.

The hepatitis B virus spreads through dirty needles and sex, and from mother

to baby at birth.

It causes yellow skin, fatigue, loss of appetite and joint pain. If the

infection becomes chronic, the virus can cause liver cancer, liver failure

and sometimes death.

Prof. Minuk's team started by studying 241 dialysis patients in Winnipeg.

Two tested positive for hepatitis B with the standard test, just above the

rate expected in the general population, but nine more tested positive on

the DNA test. The research was published in the November issue of

Hepatology, the journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver

Diseases.

People getting dialysis may not be representative of the general population,

so Prof. Minuk has completed another study of about 600 people living in a

northern community.

He won't discuss the results until they are published in a coming issue of

another journal.

He said most people in his dialysis study who were found through the DNA

test to have hidden infections had low levels of the virus in their blood.

It's possible " there's so little virus there that it's not causing any harm

and it's not likely to cause any harm, " Prof. Minuk said.

S20/TPHealth/

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