Hepatitis B surface antigen prevalence in blood samples tested at Cabell Huntington Hospital.

Hepatitis B is a major cause of chronic liver disease which leads to morbidity and mortality among patients. In the current era, when federal and governmental support for health care is shrinking, the HBsAg+ carrier state in West Virginia becomes an important factor for future health care planning. In this study, we retrospectively investigated the HBsAg+ carrier rate in serum samples studied in the Cabell-Huntington Hospital Laboratory from January 1990-January 1993. Only 50/6,209 (0.8%) serum samples were positive for HBsAg. These positive samples represented 10 different patients, 8/10 were females and only 4/8 were of child-bearing age. We conclude that HBsAg+ carrier state in patients from Cabell County is below the national average.