Hepatitis G virus infection in intravenous drug users with or without human immunodeficiency virus infection

To evaluate the HGV infection prevalence in a group of intravenous drug users with or without human immunodeficiency virus coinfection.

We studied 57 patients (48 males and 9 females) who were either previous or still ongoing intravenous drug users. Thirty-seven patients were HIV+ve, 55 patients were anti-HCV+ve and 3 patients were HBsAg chronic carriers. Patient sera were tested for HGV-RNA, anti-E2, qualitative and quantitative HCV-RNA as well as for HCV genotypes. Moreover, the ALT level was checked in the serum sample of each patient.

We found a high prevalence (35/57; 61.4%) of HGV infection in our patients. HGV-RNA was detected in 16 out of the 57 intravenous drug users (28%). In particular HGV-RNA was positive in 12 out of the 37 HIV+ve patients (32.4%) and in 4 out of the 20 HIV-ve patients (20%). Anti-E2 were detected in 19 out of the 57 patients (33.3%) with greater prevalence among HIV-ve subjects (12/20; 60%) compared to HIV+ve group (7/37; 18.9%). This resulting difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). All HGV-RNA+ve/anti-E2+ve patients were anti-HCV/HCV-RNA+ve and none of our patients were anti-E2+ve/HGV-RNA+ve at the same time. Significant differences were not found between HGV-RNA+ve and HGV-RNA-ve patients as far as clinical and virological data are concerned.

The prevalence of HGV infection in intravenous drug users proved to be high especially in the HIV+ve group. Moreover HGV was associated with HCV in all our cases. The actual clinical impact of HGV infection remains unclear since HGV does not seems to influence the biochemical, virological or histological alterations caused by HCV infection.