title: Hepatitis C virus is a more likely cause of chronic liver disease in the Japanese population than hepatitis B virus.
abstract: 508 Japanese patients with chronic liver disease, including chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, and 500 controls matched for sex and age were studied. Antibody to hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) alone was found in 233 (45.9%) patients and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) alone was present in 128 (25.2%) patients. Both anti-HCV and HBsAg were present in 18 (3.5%) patients. Anti-HCV was found in 8 (1.6%) controls and HBsAg was present in 4 (0.8%) controls. The prevalence of anti-HCV alone was 36.9% in chronic hepatitis, 49.0% in cirrhosis and 67.0% in hepatocellular carcinoma, respectively. The prevalence of anti-HCV increased with the progress of severity of liver disease. Anti-HCV was more prevalent than HBsAg both in cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (p less than 0.001). The prevalence of anti-HCV increased with age. Among patients under age 39 years, HBsAg was detected more often than anti-HCV, however, in those over age 50 years, anti-HCV was detected more often than HBsAg (p less than 0.001). It would appear that hepatitis C virus more than hepatitis B virus is a prominent cause of chronic liver disease among Japanese patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Medicine, Kyushu University, Fukuoka.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hirata
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakashima
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Noguchi
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kashiwagi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matsui
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ishibashi
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Maeda
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008107:Liver Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged