Hepatitis C virus genotypes in hemodialyzed patients: a multicentric study

The few studies concerning HCV genotypes in hemodialyzed patients concerned small groups of patients, issued from single units. Using the RFLP typing method in the 5' non-coding region (5' NCR), we performed the genotyping of HCV strains of 80 patients issued from 14 Belgian dialysis units...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inClinical nephrology Vol. 47; no. 6; p. 367
Main Authors Goessens, C, Jadoul, M, Walon, C, Burtonboy, G, Cornu, C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Germany 01.06.1997
Subjects
Belgium - epidemiology
Genotype
Hepacivirus - genetics
Hepatitis C - epidemiology
Hepatitis C - transmission
Hepatitis C - virology
Humans
Incidence
Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length
Prevalence
Renal Dialysis
Belgium
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Summary:The few studies concerning HCV genotypes in hemodialyzed patients concerned small groups of patients, issued from single units. Using the RFLP typing method in the 5' non-coding region (5' NCR), we performed the genotyping of HCV strains of 80 patients issued from 14 Belgian dialysis units. Forty-seven of the 80 patients were also tested by Inno-Lipa II (Innogenetics, Gent, Belgium). Sixty-four of 80 patients (80%) were infected with subtype 1b, 2 (2.5%) with subtype 1a, 6 (7.5%) with subtype 2a and 1 (1%) with subtype 2b; 6 patients (7.5%) showed a type 4 and 2 patients (2.5%) a type 5 infection, respectively. Only 1 patient (1%) showed a mixed infection (1a and 1b). In the 47 patients tested by both methods, we observed a very good agreement (98%) between RFLP and Inno-Lipa II's results. Our multicentric study detected HCV genotypes 4 or 5 in 8/80 (10%) of hemodialyzed patients in Belgium. The substantial prevalence of these genotypes could not be fully explained by a nosocomial spread of HCV infection: indeed, four patients belonged to dialysis units located in different cities, and two appeared infected with distinct subtypes in a same unit. Thus, the discovery of a "rare" HCV genotype in several hemodialyzed patients does not always point to nosocomial HCV transmission.
ISSN:0301-0430