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Clinical impact of GB-C virus in haemodialysis patients
B Kallinowski1, R Ahmadi, S Seipp
1Department of Internal Medicine IV, University of Heidelberg, Germany.
Background:
Haemodialysis patients run a high risk of acquiring viral hepatitis B (HBV) or C (HCV) infection. Recently a new parenterally transmittable RNA virus, designated GBV-C, was isolated.
Methods:
We therefore screened 266 patients on maintenance dialysis and 358 blood donors as a control group for GBV-C by nested PCR and correlated the data with AST, ALT, duration of dialysis, transfusions, renal transplants and coinfections with HBV and HCV.
Results:
The prevalence of GBV-C among haemodialysis patients was 7.9%, and 3.6% among blood donors. Neither duration of dialysis nor number of blood transfusions were associated with GBV-C infection, whereas GBV-C-positive patients were significantly more often transplanted than GBV-C-negative individuals. Transaminases of GBV-C-positive individuals remained within normal limits in all haemodialysis patients and normal in all infected blood donors. Coinfections of GBV-C with HBV and HCV were only present in 0.7% and 1% respectively.
Conclusions:
We conclude that GBV-C virus infection is frequent among haemodialysis patients. Transaminases cannot serve as surrogate markers, and parenteral as well as community-acquired infection seems to be possible.