: Worse Hepatitis C Disease Linked To Previous Hepatitis B Infection

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Title: Worse Hepatitis C Disease Linked To Previous Hepatitis B Infection

URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=R

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Liver 2003;23:1:12-18. " Previous hepatitis B virus infection is

associated with worse disease stage and occult hepatitis B virus

infection has low prevalence and pathogenicity in hepatitis C

virus-positive patients. "

02/12/2003 09:41:19 AM

By Loshak

Previous hepatitis B virus infection among hepatitis C virus-positive

patients is associated with worse disease stage. The patients have a

low prevalence and pathogenicity of occult hepatitis B virus infection

and there is no difference in distribution between patients with or

without markers of previous hepatitis B virus infection, say

researchers at the University of Genoa, Italy. Previous hepatitis B

virus infection did not seem to be associated with disease stage or to

affect the severity of disease, at least among patients with chronic

hepatitis, they added. The researchers noted that hepatitis C virus

positive patients with chronic liver disease often showed markers of

previous hepatitis B virus infection. They might also carry occult

hepatitis B virus infection. As those features might influence

clinical and biochemical features, as well as disease stage, the

researchers assessed the prevalence and clinical associations of

previous and occult hepatitis B virus infection in 84 patients with

chronic hepatitis and 35 patients with liver cirrhosis. Of these 119

patients, 48 (40.3%) showed markers of previous hepatitis B virus

infection. This was more frequent among patients with cirrhosis (57%)

than with chronic hepatitis (33%). Chronic hepatitis patients positive

for markers of previous hepatitis B virus infection had worse

histology than those negative for such markers. Eight patients were

positive for hepatitis B virus-DNA in serum. There was no difference

in the presence of occult hepatitis B virus infection between various

degrees of liver disease. Likewise, there was no difference in the

presence of occult hepatitis B virus infection between patients who

were positive or negative for markers of previous hepatitis B virus

infection. There were no significant biochemical, virological or

histological differences according to patient age, age at infection,

duration of infection or marker patterns of previous hepatitis B

virus, infection-matched hepatitis B, virus-DNA-positive or

virus-DNA-negative chronic hepatitis patients.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=R

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