[Hepatitis B virus in patients with renal transplant. Report of 52 cases]

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a high risk factor in the frequently found liver involvement of renal transplant recipients. As in other immunosuppressed patients, these often follow a course of slight jaundice, with a progressive tendency and great replicative and infectious power. Also, in addition to an increased incidence of chronic hepatitis (CH) in transplanted when compared with hemodialized patients, specially when HBsAg is present, it is surprising the poor correlation between enzyme levels and the grade of activity of the hepatic lesion. In a retro and prospective study, we present 52 patients of the 73 transplant reviewed. There are 32 men and 20 females, with and average age of 34 years, minimum time on dialysis of 2 months and maximum of 7 years, time of renal transplant from 6 moth to 15 years (average 4.9 years). There were 31 cadaver transplants and 21 live donors. The HBsAg was + in 20 (9 seroconverted), HBeAg was + in 4 (with 2 seroconvertions), hyperbilirrubinemia in 5, hyperalkaline phosphatasemia (2 or more times) in 11 and elevated serum transaminases (SGPT) (3 times or more) in 20 cases. Positive HBsAg plus SGPT x 3 was found on 9 occasions and positive HBsAg with SGPT x 3 in 3 cases. liver biopsy (LB), in those with enzymatic changes and/or positive antigenemia, was performed in 15 instances and there were 5 autopsies. The most important histological findings were: 5 acute viral hepatitis, 2 active chronic hepatitis (CAH), 2 persistent chronic hepatitis (CPH), 5 with fat infiltration and 4 with colestasis.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)