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World J Gastroenterol. Mar 14, 2008; 14(10): 1559-1563
Published online Mar 14, 2008. doi: 10.3748/wjg.14.1559
Prevalence of anti-HAV antibodies in multitransfused patients with beta-thalassemia
Dimitrios Siagris, Alexandra Kouraklis-Symeonidis, Irini Konstantinidou, Myrto Christofidou, Ioannis Starakis, Alexandra Lekkou, Christos Papadimitriou, Alexandros Blikas, Nicholas Zoumbos, Chryssoula Labropoulou-Karatza
Dimitrios Siagris, Alexandra Kouraklis-Symeonidis, Irini Konstantinidou, Myrto Christofidou, Ioannis Starakis, Alexandra Lekkou, Christos Papadimitriou, Alexandros Blikas, Nicholas Zoumbos, Chryssoula Labropoulou-Karatza, Department of Internal Medicine, Patras University Hospital, Patras 26504, Greece
Author contributions: Siagris D carried out the statistical analysis of the data and wrote the paper; Kouraklis-Symeonidis A, Konstantinidou I and Zoumbos N treated the beta-thalassemia patients; Starakis I, Lekkou A and Blikas A treated the controls; Christofidou M and Papadimitriou C carried out the virological tests; Labropoulou-Karatza C had the original idea for the study and supervised the study.
Correspondence to: Dimitrios Siagris, Department of Internal Medicine, Patras University Hospital, 4 Tertseti Str, Patras 26442, Greece. dsiagris@altecnet.gr
Telephone: +30-2610-438980
Fax: +30-2610-993982
Received: September 6, 2007
Revised: January 25, 2008
Published online: March 14, 2008
Abstract

AIM: To detect the prevalence of anti-HAV IgG antibodies in adult multitransfused beta-thalassemic patients.

METHODS: We studied 182 adult beta-thalassemic patients and 209 controls matched for age and sex from the same geographic area, at the same time. Anti-HAV IgG antibodies, viral markers of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were evaluated.

RESULTS: Anti-HAV IgG antibodies were detected more frequently in thalassemic patients (133/182; 73.1%) than in healthy controls (38/209; 18.2%, P < 0.0005). When we retrospectively evaluated the prevalence of anti-HAV IgG antibodies in 176/182 (96.7%) thalassemic patients, whose medical history was available for the previous ten years, it was found that 83 (47.2%) of them were continuously anti-HAV IgG positive, 16 (9.1%) acquired anti-HAV IgG antibody during the previous ten years, 49 (27.8%) presented anti-HAV positivity intermittently and 28 (15.9%) were anti-HAV negative continuously.

CONCLUSION: Multitransfused adult beta-thalassemic patients present higher frequency of anti-HAV IgG antibodies than normal population of the same geographic area. This difference is difficult to explain, but it can be attributed to the higher vulnerability of thalassemics to HAV infection and to passive transfer of anti-HAV antibodies by blood transfusions.

Keywords: Hepatitis A virus; Anti-HAV antibodies; Beta-thalassemia; Multiple transfusions; Hepatitis C virus