Fuse Kyoko, Matsuyama Yuichi, Moriyama Masato, Miyakoshi Shukuko, Shibasaki Yasuhiko, Takizawa Jun, Furukawa Tatsuo, Fuse Ichiro, Matsumura Hiro, Uchida Shigeharu, Takahashi Yoshifumi, Kamimura Kenya, Abe Hiroyuki, Suda Takeshi, Aoyagi Yutaka, Sone Hirohito, Masuko Masayoshi
Department of Hematology, Endocrinology and Metabolism Niigata University Faculty of Medicine, Japan.
Intern Med. 2015;54(6):657-61. doi: 10.2169/internalmedicine.54.2332. Epub 2015 Jan 15.
We herein report the case of a leukemia patient who developed hepatitis E seven months after undergoing a transfusion with contaminated blood products. The latency period in this case was significantly longer than that of typical hepatitis E. Recently, chronic infection with hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 has been reported in immunocompromised patients. There is a possibility that our patient was unable to eliminate the virus due to immunosuppression following chemotherapy and the administration of steroids. The prevalence of HEV in healthy Japanese individuals is relatively high and constitutes a critical source of infection via transfusion. Hepatitis E is an important post-transfusion infection, and immunocompromised patients may exhibit a long latency period before developing the disease.
