Occult HBV infection among anti-HBc positive HIV-infected patients in apex referral centre, Eastern India
Journal Title: Annals of Hepatology - Year 2012, Vol 11, Issue 6
Abstract
Background. The prevalence of occult HBV, defined by the presence of HBV DNA in individuals with antibodies to HBV core antigen and with absence of HBV surface antigen, but its clinical significance and virological features in HIV-infected patients is still unclear. Aim. To investigate the prevalence, clinicalsignificance and molecular characterization of occult hepatitis B virus infection in ART-Naive HIV-positive individuals. Material and methods. Among the 1077 HIV-infected patients with different risk factors for HIV infection, 297 were HBsAg-ve ART-naive, of them 112 was randomly selected for the study. HBV DNA was tested by in-house PCR and quantified by qPCR. Molecular characterization was performed by sequencing the envelope and overlapping polymerase genes. Results. We found the prevalence of occult HBV to be 10.7% among a randomly selected group of HBsAg-ve/antiHBc+ve HIV-infected patients. Overall 33.9% (38 of 112) of the patients were antiHBc positive indicating exposure to HBV infection. HBV DNA was detected in 12/38 (31.5%) antiHBc positive samples and 50% of them had CD4 T cell count < 200 cells/mm 3 . HCV coinfection was low (2.7%). No surrogate marker for OBI could be identified. Presence of antiHBs antibodies did not rule out OBI. Liver biopsy in six cases showed varying stages of chronic hepatitis. Several mutations were detected but not the common immune escape mutant G145R. Conclusion. In conclusion the prevalence of OBI was significantly high among HIV coinfected patients, which highlights the importance of HBV DNA testing in these patients and indicates need for further prospective studies in larger cohorts to assess its clinical significance.
Authors and Affiliations
R. Panigrahi, S. Majumder, M. Gooptu, A. Biswas, P. K. Chandra, D. Bandopadhyay, B. K. De
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP78207
- DOI -
- Views 117
- Downloads 0
Complete remission of visceral and cutaneous Kaposi´s sarcoma after liver-kidney transplantati
Cefuroxime axetil-induced liver failure
The preventive effect of low molecular weight heparin on CCL4-induced necrosis and apoptosis in rat liv
Introduction. Heparin having anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic properties may have therapeutic effect on liver injury. The present study investigated the effect of low molecular weight heparin (Enoxaparin) on carbon te...
Angiogenesis in chronic liver disease
Background: Chronic liver disease is characterized by inflammation and fibrosis. As a consequence angiogenesis leading to new vasculature may have prognostic value in disease progression. Interfering with angiogenesis ma...
Extracorporeal liver support-albumin dialysis with the Molecular Adsorbent Recirculating System (MARS)
Extracorporeal liver support has been a much studied topic throughout the last 50 years. Albumin dialysis as a therapeutic option for patients with acute liver failure or acute decompensation of chronic liver disease was...