Background: Primary infection with BK virus (BKV) is occurred during childhood and usually asymptomatic, but after initial infection, BKV may persist lifelong in the kidney and genitourinary tract. Reactivation may occur in individuals with compromised immunity such as renal transplant recipients. Due to the role of BKV in BK virus-associated nephropathy (BKVAN) and po...

OBJECTIVE to identify predictive factors of response to pegylated interferon alpha-2b and ribavirin in patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C. Viral kinetics were studied in weeks 2 and 4. METHODS a prospective and consecutive study of patients with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C referred to our Hepatology Clinic between January 2004 and October 2006 for antiviral treatment. Baseline da...

Recent data suggest that infection with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) subtype C results in prolonged high-level viremia (>5 log10 copies/mL) during early infection. We examined the relationship between HIV-1 subtype and plasma viremia among 153 African seroconverters. Mean setpoint viral loads were similar for C and non-C subtypes: 4.36 vs 4.42 log10 copies/mL (P = .61). The propo...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA testing can be performed using qualitative or quantitative assays, and it is still unclear which is more useful as a primary test in patients positive for anti-HCV. The present study evaluated the usefulness of anti-HCV signal-to-cutoff ratio (S/CO ratio) for predicting HCV RNA results. METHODS Patients on whom a qualitative HCV RNA test was perform...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The objective was to study the long-term impact of transient versus persistent BK viremia on kidney transplant outcomes. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS In total, 609 recipients who underwent kidney transplant from 2007 to 2011 were screened at months 1-12 for the occurrence of polyomavirus BK viremia; 130 patients (21.7%) developed BK viremia during th...

BACKGROUND Donors with hepatitis C (HCV) viremia are rarely used for orthotopic heart transplantation (HT) owing to post-transplantation risks. New highly effective HCV antivirals may alter the landscape. METHODS An adult patient unsuitable for bridging mechanical support therapy accepted a heart transplant offer from a donor with HCV viremia. On daily logarithmic rise in HCV viral load and a...

To the Editor, We read with great interest the article by Sansonno et al. [1] on transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) plus sorafenib in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The authors did not provide information on the HCV kinetics of patients receiving this treatment intervention because of the oncologic nature of the study. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) a...