[Epidemiology, clinical aspects, immunology and morphology of non-A, non-B hepatitis]

Examinations were carried out in a population group of 106 potentially contaminated females and in five donors, affected one year earlier within the frames of a restricted epidemic, caused by NANB-hepatitis virus. It was possible to differentiate a specific antibody-antigen system, identical to that of sirahi et al. The antigen was confirmed in 20 per cent of the females, 21 per cent of the contaminated did not get ill. The high SGPT level came in the foreground in the rest; 38 per cent had the signs of cholestasis. After one year, high transaminases were found in 43 per cent of the diseased, and biopsically--a chronic persistent hepatitis was found or a hepatitis with low activity. The chronification tendency correlates with the favourable clinical findings during the initial acute phase. The patients with prodromal phenomena, high transaminases and cholestasis showed a tendency to noncomplicated course and completely healing. The extraparenteral infection was confirmed, being conditioned by the close contact between mother and child or during breast feeding on one hand, on the base of the clinical manifestations, and biopsically--on the other.