Hepatitis C virus genotypes in hemodialyzed patients: a multicentric study.
The few studies concerning HCV genotypes in hemodialyzed patients concerned small groups of patients, issued from single units. Using the RFLP typing method in the 5' non-coding region (5' NCR), we performed the genotyping of HCV strains of 80 patients issued from 14 Belgian dialysis units. Forty-seven of the 80 patients were also tested by Inno-Lipa II (Innogenetics, Gent, Belgium). Sixty-four of 80 patients (80%) were infected with subtype 1b, 2 (2.5%) with subtype 1a, 6 (7.5%) with subtype 2a and 1 (1%) with subtype 2b; 6 patients (7.5%) showed a type 4 and 2 patients (2.5%) a type 5 infection, respectively. Only 1 patient (1%) showed a mixed infection (1a and 1b). In the 47 patients tested by both methods, we observed a very good agreement (98%) between RFLP and Inno-Lipa II's results. Our multicentric study detected HCV genotypes 4 or 5 in 8/80 (10%) of hemodialyzed patients in Belgium. The substantial prevalence of these genotypes could not be fully explained by a nosocomial spread of HCV infection: indeed, four patients belonged to dialysis units located in different cities, and two appeared infected with distinct subtypes in a same unit. Thus, the discovery of a "rare" HCV genotype in several hemodialyzed patients does not always point to nosocomial HCV transmission.
Goessens
C
C
Virology Unit, University of Louvain Medical School, Brussels, Belgium.
Jadoul
M
M
Walon
C
C
Burtonboy
G
G
Cornu
C
C
D001530:Belgium / Q000453:epidemiology; D005838:Genotype; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000235:genetics*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D015995:Prevalence; D006435:Renal Dialysis