We greatly enjoyed reading the excellent review by Hollinger and colleagues on occult hepatitis B infection in chronic hemodialysis (HD) patients (1). As Hollinger et al. mentioned in their review, few studies have shown the prevalence of occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in HD patients. Due to the parenteral transmission of HBV, HD patients are at high risk of acquiring this virus becau...

Anti-HBc positivity is a frequent cause of donation rejection at blood banks. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection may also occur in HBsAg-negative patients, a situation denoted occult infection. Similarly, very low levels of HBV-DNA have also been found in the sera of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, even in the absence of serum HBsAg. Initially we searched for HBV-DNA in ...

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 conclusion, occult hbv was found in 36% of patients with negative results for hbsag, but positive results for hcv. detection of hbv-dna in both pbmcs and plasma together in comparison with plasma alone provided more true identification of obi.the svr rate was significantly higher in coinfected patients than mono-infected ones. background occult hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection (...

Occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is defined as persistence of HBV DNA in liver tissues, with or without detectability of HBV DNA in the serum, in individuals with negative serum HBV surface antigen (HBsAg). Despite accumulating evidence suggesting its important clinical roles, the molecular and virological basis of occult hepatitis B remains unclear. In an attempt to establish new hepat...

 ABSTRACT Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in patients who lack detectable hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is called occult hepatitis B infection. Such infections have been frequently identified in patients with chronic hepatitis Cliver disease, but their prevalence is not known. Methods: 207 patients with chronic hepatitis C who were HCV -RNA and antiHCV positive were stu...

Occult HBV infection (OBI), defined by the presence of HBV DNA in absence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), is a significant concern in the HIV-infected population. Of 441 HIV+/HBsAg- patients analyzed, the overall prevalence of OBI was 6.3% (28/441). OBI was identified in 21 anti-HBc positives (17.8%), as well as among those who lacked any HBV-specific serological markers (2.2%). Compari...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the prevalence of occult HBV infection (OBI) among children and to characterize virology of occult HBV, we conducted an epidemiological survey. METHODS 186 HB-vaccinated infants born to HBsAg-positive mothers were included in the study. Serological tests for HBV markers were performed using commercial ELISA kits. Real-time quantitative PCR and nested PCR were used to ...