Prevalence of hepatitis C virus infections in dialysis patients and their contacts using a second generation enzymed-linked immunosorbent assay

✍ Scribed by U. Schlipköter; U. Gladziwa; K. Cholmakov; A. Weise; R. Rasshofer; B. Lorbeer; N. Luz; F. Deinhardt; M. Roggendorf

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 447 KB
• Volume: 181
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0300-8584
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00202057

✦ Synopsis

The prevalence of antibodies to the hepatitis C virus (HCV) was determined in 498 hemodialysis patients from three german dialysis units, 121 staff members and 42 family members using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) of the second generation which detects antibodies to a structural (C22) and to non-structural (C33c, C 100, 5-1-1) recombinant antigens to HCV. Using the second generation ELISA 115 patients (23.1%) were anti-HCV positive versus 77 (15.5 %) when sera were tested by an ELISA of the first generation containing only a non-structural antigen (C 100). In 34 of these 40 discordant sera antibodies against at least one viral protein was found by a recombinant immunoblot assay. Of 5 sera containing antibodies to only one viral protein (C22) 3 were HCV RNA positive by polymerase chain reaction. Epidemiological evaluation of the patients revealed that the prevalence of anti-HCV was correlated to the duration of dialysis but not to the number of blood transfusions. Of 121 staff members 2 (1.6 %) and 2 of 42 family members (4.7%) were positive indicating a low risk of the patients' contacts of acquiring HCV infection.