Heterosexual transmission of hepatitis C virus among married couples in southwestern Japan

✍ Scribed by Keitaro Tanaka; Sherri O. Stuver; Hideyuki Ikematsu; Akihiko Okayama; Nobuyoshi Tachibana; Tomio Hirohata; Seizaburo Kashiwagi; Hirohito Tsubouchi; Nancy E. Mueller

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 59 KB
• Volume: 72
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7136
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0215(19970703)72:1<50::aid-ijc7>3.0.co;2-3

✦ Synopsis

The heterosexual transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains controversial, and data from general populations are scanty. In this cross-sectional study, we assessed the seroprevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) and the presence and genotype of HCV-RNA among 109 married couples within an endemic, community-based Japanese population. Overall, 25% of the husbands and 32% of the wives had anti-HCV. Spouses with anti-HCV-positive partners were around 2 times more likely to have anti-HCV than spouses with anti-HCV-negative partners (p 5 0.01). Of 6 couples in which both spouses had HCV-RNA, however, 3 presented discordant HCV genotypes (type 1b vs. 2b). The couples' anti-HCV concordance status was not significantly influenced by the presence or absence of HCV-RNA among anti-HCVpositive partners (odds ratio [OR]: 0.8 for wives, 0.6 for husbands), nor by the length of marriage, the number of pregnancies or the use of contraceptives. No significant associations with anti-HCV were observed for serum markers of sexually transmitted agents, including human T-lymphotropic virus (OR 5 1.1, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.5-2.3), Treponema pallidum (OR 5 0.7; CI 0.1-6.1) and hepatitis B virus (OR 5 1.6; CI 0.9-3.0). Our results suggest that the clustering of HCV infection among specific couples within this endemic population may not be attributable to heterosexual transmission. Follow-up studies are necessary to determine the risk of heterosexual transmission of HCV in endemic areas. Int.