title: Hepatitis in drug dependents.
abstract: A survey of viral liver disease in 130 drug dependents attending the WAADA in August to November 1977 revealed 58 per cent with serological stigmata of hepatitis B infection. Of those who were HBsAg negative (excluding 31 patients in whom history and physical examination were insufficient for clinical diagnosis of hepatitis) 50 to 65 per cent had some degree of liver dysfunction. Some of this in the HBsAg negative, Anti HBs negative group could have been due to non-A non-B hepatitis. Twenty patients had liver biopsies and 16 (80 per cent) of these had chronic hepatitis, of whom nine (45 per cent) had the more ominous chronic aggressive hepatitis. The high levels of preference for intravenous use of drugs (83 per cent injected themselves on more than half the occasions) and close association with other addicts raised concern about these patients acting as a reservoir of B and non-A non-B hepatitis infection to the population at large. It was noted that the carriage rate of hepatitis B in the WAADA addicts was 80 per times that of the general population.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D002353:Carrier State; D006505:Hepatitis / Q000635:transmission*; D006801:Humans; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000150:complications*