Detection of hepatitis C viraemia in caucasian patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

✍ Scribed by Dr. J. A. Garson; A. N. Wicki; C. J. A. Ring; H. Joller; G. Zala; M. Schmid; H. Buehler

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 487 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0146-6615
• DOI: 10.1002/jmv.1890380215

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Potential risk factors for the development of hepatocellular carcinoma were analysed in 40 Caucasian patients with this malignancy. A higher proportion (14 of 40; 35%) had evidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection than had evidence of either hepatitis B virus (HBV) carriage (17.5%) or alcohol abuse (30%). In all 14 patients whose sera were reactive by HCV ELISA (Ortho second generation test), the presence of antibodies to HCV were confirmed by recombinant immunoblot assay (Ortho RIBA‐2). Furthermore, two independent laboratories detected HCV‐RNA in 10 of the 14 (71%) anti‐HCV positive sera. Two additional sera were shown to contain HCV‐RNA when reanalysed by a modified PCR using oligo‐nucleotide primers designed to amplify a shorter fragment of the 5′ noncoding region of the genome. Seven of the anti‐HCV positive patients also had evidence of prior HBV infection and 2 admitted to alcohol abuse. HCV infection was the only identifiable risk factor in 6 patients. These data confirm the association between HCV infection and hepatocellular carcinoma and suggest that persistent viral replication accompanies tumour development in the majority of patients whose serum contains anti‐HCV. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.