Interactions between human immunodeficiency virus-1, hepatitis delta virus and hepatitis B virus infections in 260 chronic carriers of hepatitis B virus

✍ Scribed by Chantal Housset; Stanislas Pol; Françoise Carnot; Frédéric Dubois; Bertrand Nalpas; Bruno Housset; Pierre Berthelot; Christian Brechot

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 720 KB
• Volume: 15
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-9139
• DOI: 10.1002/hep.1840150404

✦ Synopsis

To evaluate the factors determining the severity of chronic hepatitis B virus infection and the interactions of human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis delta virus infections, we retrospectively analyzed 260 patients, 146 of whom were followed for a mean of 31.4 c 1.8 mo. Human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B virus, and hepatitis delta virus status and aminotransferase activities, histological activity index, alcohol consumption and the prevalence of cirrhosis were investigated. The patients included 54 homosexuals, 19 parented drug abusers and 187 subjects with other or unidentified risk factors for exposure to hepatitis B virus.

Thirty-five patients (13%) were positive for antibody to human immunodeficiency virus; 27 were homosexual and 8 were drug abusers. The mean aminotransferase activities, histological activity index and the prevalence of cirrhosis were similar in the human immunodeficiency virus-positive and human immunodeficiency virus-negative subgroups. Actuarial survival was significantly lower in the human immunodeficiency virus-positive group than in the human immunodeficiency virus-negative subjects (p = 0.004); the cause of death was clearly related to liver failure in four of the five human immunodeficiency viruspositive patients and two of the six human immunodeficiency virus-negative subjects who died. To evaluate the factors determining the severity of liver disease, we compared homogeneous subgroups of subjects. Among the homosexual patients, the prevalence of HBeAg and hepatitis B virus DNA, aminotransferase activities and the histological activity index did not differ according to human immunodeficiency virus antibody status. By contrast, human immunodeficiency virus-positive drug abusers had a higher histological activity index than their human immunodeficiency virus-negative counterparts (14.3 vs. 11.1; p = 0.02), despite a similar