Dhotial A, Kapoor D, Kumar N
Department of Gastroenterology, GB Pant Hospital, New Delhi-110 002.
Trop Gastroenterol. 2002 Oct-Dec;23(4):170-1.
Patients with chronic liver disease of any etiology are at a high risk for a more severe outcome when superinfected with hepatitis A virus (HAV). Prevention of hepatitis A, by inactivated vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective in this subgroup of patients. Most countries in the West recommend prophylaxis against hepatitis A virus for patients with chronic liver disease. However, hepatitis A virus is endemic in India. Before advocating a uniform prophylaxis against hepatitis A for chronic liver disease patients in India, we prospectively evaluated the seroprevalence of hepatitis A virus antibody (Anti HAV) among the patients with cirrhosis of liver registered at our hospital, using a commercial enzyme-immunoassay (ELISA). Prevalence of protective antibody against HAV among the 42 Cirrhotic patients included in the study was documented to be 97.6% (41/42). Therefore, vaccination against hepatitis A virus infection may not be needed among patients with chronic liver disease in our population. However, further studies including adequate sample size is needed to confirm the observation encountered in the present study.
任何病因的慢性肝病患者在感染甲型肝炎病毒（HAV）时，发生更严重后果的风险很高。灭活疫苗预防甲型肝炎已被证明在该亚组患者中是安全有效的。西方大多数国家建议对慢性肝病患者进行甲型肝炎病毒预防。然而，甲型肝炎病毒在印度是地方性流行。在倡导对印度慢性肝病患者进行统一的甲型肝炎预防之前，我们使用商业酶免疫测定法（ELISA），对我院登记的肝硬化患者中甲型肝炎病毒抗体（抗-HAV）的血清流行率进行了前瞻性评估。该研究纳入的42例肝硬化患者中，抗-HAV保护性抗体的流行率记录为97.6%（41/42）。因此，我们人群中的慢性肝病患者可能不需要接种甲型肝炎病毒疫苗。然而，需要进一步开展包括足够样本量的研究来证实本研究中的观察结果。
