High prevalence of HBV infectivity in blood donors detected by the dot blot hybridisation assay.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) continues to be a significant cause for post-transfusion hepatitis in India, in spite of the introduction of compulsory hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) screening. To understand the true HBV-infective pool in the blood donor population, HBV DNA was detected by a 32P-labelled dot blot hybridisation assay in 605 donor units that were negative for HBsAg by a third-generation Elisa. Serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) was estimated in all these samples and correlated with DNA positivity. The frequency of HBV DNA positivity in HBsAg-negative units was very high (9.91%) and correlated well with the elevation in ALT (p < 0.00005). However, the frequency of elevated ALT was high (11.9%), using the locally determined upper limit of normal, and half of the DNA-positive samples had a normal ALT. Thus, ALT is a poor surrogate marker for HBV infectivity and efforts should be made to apply DNA detection systems in blood banks.
Nagaraju
K
K
Department of Immunology, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.
Misra
S
S
Saraswat
S
S
Choudhary
N
N
Masih
B
B
Ramesh
V
V
Naik
S
S
D000328:Adult; D000410:Alanine Transaminase / Q000097:blood; D001782:Blood Donors; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000201:enzymology / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000097:blood; D006515:Hepatitis B virus / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D007194:India / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D015995:Prevalence; D065227:Transfusion Reaction
D004279:DNA, Viral; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens; D000410:Alanine Transaminase