Department of Pathology, Fujita Health University School of Medicine, Toyoake, Japan.
J Med Virol. 2010 Apr;82(4):556-61. doi: 10.1002/jmv.21612.
Oku-Komyo-En is one of the national leprosy sanatoria, located on a small island in Setouchi city, Okayama prefecture of Japan since 1938. Since autopsies were carried out routinely on almost all patients who had died in the sanatorium up to 1980, approximately 1,000 formalin-fixed autopsy tissue samples were available for analysis. When these samples were reviewed, the pathological data indicated a sharp rise in the death rate caused by cirrhosis of the liver and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) since 1960 and 1970, respectively. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a common cause of HCC in Japan. The presence of HCV RNA was demonstrated in paraffin sections prepared from the autopsied liver tissue fixed in formalin for a prolonged period of time, by employing nested RT-PCR using type-specific primers. The data showed that HCV RNA was detectable in samples of the liver archived as early as 1940, representing the liver tissues kept in formalin for up to 67 years. HCV genotypes 1b and 2a were found by RT-PCR at 85.7% and 14.3%, respectively, in patients with leprosy.
大久野岛是日本冈山县的一个小岛，自 1938 年起成为日本国立麻风病疗养院之一。自 1980 年以前，这里对几乎所有在疗养院去世的患者例行尸检，因此留存了约 1000 份福尔马林固定的尸检组织样本可供分析。这些样本的病理数据显示，自 20 世纪 60 年代和 70 年代起，因肝硬化和肝细胞癌（HCC）导致的死亡率急剧上升。丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）感染是日本 HCC 的常见病因。采用巢式 RT-PCR 结合型特异性引物，对福尔马林固定的长期保存的尸检肝组织石蜡切片进行检测，发现 HCV RNA 的存在。数据显示，HCV RNA 早在 1940 年就可从保存于福尔马林的样本中检测到，这代表了福尔马林保存时间最长达 67 年的肝组织。RT-PCR 显示，1b 和 2a 型 HCV 在麻风病患者中的检出率分别为 85.7%和 14.3%。
