Hepatitis G virus infection in patients with alcoholic liver disease

The recently discovered hepatitis G virus (HGV) is believed to be a single-stranded RNA virus belonging to the Flaviviridae family, similar to hepatitis C virus (HCV), but much remains to be learned about its characteristics and clinical manifestations. Although it has been suggested that alcohol intake might have an effect on liver pathology by promoting the proliferation of HCV, the association between HGV infection and alcohol intake is yet to be elucidated. In the present study, we investigated the prevalence of HGV-RNA and HCV-RNA in 63 patients with alcoholic liver disease, and studied the effects of alcohol on the progression of hepatic damage in HGV-RNA positive patients. Among these 63 patients, 9 (14%) were HGV-RNA-positive and 37 (59%) were HCV-RNA-positive. Seven (78%) of the nine HGV-RNA positive patients were also infected with HCV. The patients showed no significant differences of clinical features in relation to the presence or absence of HGV infection. There were also no differences of liver histology among HCV-RNA-positive patients with or without HGV-RNA. The two patients infected with HGV alone had alcoholic hepatitis and nonspecific reactive hepatitis, respectively. In this study, alcohol seemed to have little influence on the progression of the liver histology in HGV-RNA-positive patients.