Meta-Analysis
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Feb 27, 2021; 13(2): 242-260
Published online Feb 27, 2021. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v13.i2.242
Occult hepatitis C virus infection in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Mohammad Reza Hedayati-Moghaddam, Hossein Soltanian, Sanaz Ahmadi-Ghezeldasht
Mohammad Reza Hedayati-Moghaddam, Hossein Soltanian, Sanaz Ahmadi-Ghezeldasht, Blood Borne Infections Research Center, Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR), Razavi Khorasan Branch, Mashhad 91779-49367, Iran
Author contributions: Hedayati-Moghaddam MR conception and design of the study, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting the paper, revising the article, and final approval; Soltanian H acquisition of data, and final approval; Ahmadi-Ghezeldasht S acquisition of data, drafting the paper, and final approval.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors deny any conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mohammad Reza Hedayati-Moghaddam, MD, Associate Professor, Blood Borne Infections Research Center, Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR), Razavi Khorasan Branch, Ferdowsi University campus, Azadi sq, Mashhad 91779-49367, Iran. drhedayati@acecr.ac.ir
Received: October 5, 2020
Peer-review started: October 5, 2020
First decision: November 16, 2020
Revised: November 25, 2020
Accepted: December 8, 2020
Article in press: December 8, 2020
Published online: February 27, 2021
Processing time: 136 Days and 8.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: No comprehensive reported data are available in the literature regarding the estimated prevalence rate of occult hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean countries. This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis to calculate occult HCV infection rate in this region. We estimated the overall rate as well as the rates among both healthy and high-risk populations such as those infected with human immunodeficiency virus, patients with end-stage renal diseases, cryptogenic liver diseases, cleared or treated HCV infection, lymphoproliferative disorders, and multi-transfused patients.