Prevalence of hepatitis viruses among multi-transfused homogenous thalassaemia patients

Thalassaemic children being multi-transfused are at increased risk of parenterally transmissible hepatitis viruses and majority of them prone to develop chronic liver disease. The study is designed to find out the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis D virus (HDV) seromarkers and correlation of age, sex, number of transfusions and the viral aetiology in thalassaemics of central India. One hundred and four thalassaemic children were subjected to clinical, biochemical and serological analysis for the HBV, HCV and HDV viruses. The chi(2) test was applied to check the statistical significance of different variables. In the present study HBV markers were detected in 57 (56%) of the subjects while anti-HCV antibodies were observed in 21% of the patients. However, only four subjects were detected hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) reactive but none of them were reactive for anti-HDV antibodies. Forty patients had raised alanine transaminase (ALT) levels and among them two were HBsAg reactive, 16 were anti-HBc antibody positive and 14 were anti-HCV reactive. The prevalence of hepatitis viruses and raised ALT levels are found to be significantly associated with the increasing age and number of blood units transfused to them. The present findings also document the excellent contribution of stringent screening of blood units and HBV vaccination programme for containing the HBV infection among thalassaemics.