Studies of donors who transmit posttransfusion hepatitis

Sera and questionnaires were evaluated retrospectively from 128 volunteer blood donors whose blood had been implicated in cases of clinically recognized post-transfusion hepatitis in recipients of one- or two-unit blood transfusion between 1971 and 1977. Serologic markers of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection were found in 23 percent, compared to 9.7 percent of 3,230 prospective blood donors. The prevalence of antibody to hepatitis A virus was similar among implicated donors (44%), prospective donors (58%), and among those implicated donors with (41%) and without (44%) HBV markers. Among implicated donors, none had a history at the time of donation of having had clinically recognizable hepatitis, 93 percent had no history of prior blood transfusion, and 80 percent had normal hepatic enzymes. Data from this study confirm that non-A, non-B hepatitis has been a common form of posttransfusion hepatitis in recent years, since 77 percent of these implicated donors had no HBV serologic markers. In addition, these donors could not be distinguished by age, race, sex, history of clinical hepatitis or of prior blood transfusion, or in most cases by hepatic enzyme levels.