Occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is characterized by the presence of HBV DNA in serum and/or in the liver of patients negative for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). Occult infection may impact in several different clinical contexts including the risk of HBV transmission with transfusion or transplantation, and endogenous viral reactivation. The gold standard test for detection of occ...

conclusions although the frequency of hbsag seropositivity in the present study was close to that observed in the overall iranian population, the seroprevalence of anti-hbc was higher, possibly due to the exposure of the elderly to more risk factors. the risk factors were similar. these included a history of blood transfusions, cupping, hospital admission, endoscopy, or familial hbv/hcv infecti...

conclusions in our study, only hbv genotype d was found among all the positive hbsag and occult hbv infection. moreover, high prevalence (40.7%) of occult hbv infection was determined among patients suffered from cryptogenic cirrhosis. results eleven (40.7%) out of 27 hbv cryptogenic cirrhosis and all 11 hbsag-positive patients were positive for hbv dna. the seroprevalences of hepatitis b virus...

conclusions in comparison with the rate of hbcab positivity reported in other iranian studies, the rate was higher in the present study. there were a few variations, genotypes, and subtypes among the infected injecting drug users. further investigations are needed to unravel the molecular characterization of obi. results sixty-four (28%) participants were hbcab positive, 59 cases were hbcab pos...

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)- infected patients are at risk of acquiring viral hepatitis, due to common routes of transmission. As the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) reduced the frequency of opportunistic infections and improved survival, viral hepatitis emerged as an important cause of morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected cases. Occult hepatitis B virus (...

conclusions this study showed a low rate of isolated anti-hbc and occult hbv infection in hd patients. it can be due to improvement of people’s knowledge about hbv transmission routes, hbv vaccination of hd patients and regular surveillance of hbv infection. results a hundredpatients with a mean age of 58.5 ± 16.1 years were enrolled in this study. in total, 56.7% were male and 43.3% female. an...

background: in patients who are hepatitis b virus (hbv) dna-positive, but hbv surface antigen (hbsag) -negative, the infection is referred to as occult hepatitis b infection (obi). occult hbv infection is harmful when other liver diseases are present, and can aggravate liver damage in in patients with chronic liver diseases. in human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) infection the suppression of vir...

background the transmission of hepatitis b virus (hbv) is parenteral, sexual and prenatal. prevention of vertical transmission of hbv is extremely important, because hbv infection in early life usually results in a chronic carrier state. there has been so much debate about hepatitis b surface antigen (hbsag) screening in pregnant women. objectives the aim of this study was to determine the prev...

We read with interest the article by Taheri et al. regarding the efficacy of Hepatitis B vaccine in those who lost Hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) during follow up (1). As the authors mentioned, a protective anti-HBs level developed in 24% of chronic HBsAg-positive subjects who had already lost their HBsAg after hepatitis B vaccination, and the remaining cases need to be monitored for occul...