[Significance of hepatitis B virus markers in children with acute and chronic hepatitis B in the familial spread of the infection].

Clinical, laboratory, and epidemiological examinations were carried out in 331 family members of 93 children with acute hepatitis B and 85 with chronic hepatitis B. Sensitive methods (passive hemagglutination test, radioimmunoassay, enzyme-immunoassay) were used for the detection of markers of hepatitis B virus: HBsAg, anti-HBs, HBeAg, and anti-HBe. Patients with chronic hepatitis B with prolonged HBs- and HBe-antigenemia were shown to play the main role in formation of the familial foci of HB virus infection, whereas the children with acute hepatitis B who, as a rule, had a short-time HBe-antigenemia, were of no great epidemiological importance for their family members. In the families of children suffering from chronic hepatitis B, infection with hepatitis B virus occurred most frequently in their mothers.