Huraib S, al-Rashed R, Aldrees A, Aljefry M, Arif M, al-Faleh F A
Department of Medicine, King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Nephrol Dial Transplant. 1995;10(4):470-4. doi: 10.1093/ndt/10.4.470.
Non-A, non-B is a major form of hepatitis in haemodialysis (HD) patients. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been recently identified as the leading cause of non-A, non-B hepatitis in HD. A variable prevalence of hepatitis in HD has appeared in the literature, ranging between 1% and 29% in the Western world, and between 30% and 54% in Saudi Arabia, but all these reports used first-generation ELISA. Using second-generation enzyme immunoassay, we conducted a multi-centre study involving 22 HD centres all over Saudi Arabia in order to establish the prevalence and risk factors for HCV in HD patients in Saudi Arabia. A total of 1147 patients were studied, with a mean age of 43.4 +/- 15.3 years. Five hundred and eighty were males and 567 were females. The overall prevalence rate of positive anti-HCV was 68%, with a range from as low as 14.5%, to 94.7%. To our knowledge, this is the highest value reported among dialysis patients world-wide. A positive correlation was found between anti-HCV positivity and male sex (P = 0.005), longer duration on dialysis (P = 0.002) and blood transfusion (P = 0.003). However, interestingly 62.6% of the patients who had not had blood transfusion had anti-HCV antibodies. HCV antibodies were also found more frequently in Egyptians, Pakistanis and Yemenis than in Saudis. A comparison between those centres with low prevalence of positive HCV and those with high prevalence regarding risk factors was carried out, and it was found that the major difference between them was the adherence of the staff to universal infection precautions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
非甲非乙型肝炎是血液透析（HD）患者中肝炎的主要形式。丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）最近已被确认为HD患者中非甲非乙型肝炎的主要病因。文献中出现了HD患者中肝炎患病率的差异，在西方世界为1%至29%，在沙特阿拉伯为30%至54%，但所有这些报告都使用第一代酶联免疫吸附测定法（ELISA）。我们使用第二代酶免疫测定法，在沙特阿拉伯各地的22个HD中心开展了一项多中心研究，以确定沙特阿拉伯HD患者中HCV的患病率和危险因素。共研究了1147例患者，平均年龄为43.4±15.3岁。其中580例为男性，567例为女性。抗HCV阳性的总体患病率为68%，范围从低至14.5%到94.7%。据我们所知，这是全球透析患者中报告的最高值。发现抗HCV阳性与男性性别（P = 0.005）、透析时间较长（P = 0.002）和输血（P = 0.003）之间存在正相关。然而，有趣的是，62.6%未输血的患者有抗HCV抗体。在埃及人、巴基斯坦人和也门人当中，HCV抗体的发现频率也高于沙特人。我们对HCV阳性患病率低的中心和高的中心在危险因素方面进行了比较，发现它们之间的主要差异在于工作人员对普遍感染预防措施的遵守情况。（摘要截选至250词）
