Age trend in hepatitis C virus genotype distribution as seen in a Brussels teaching hospital.
The hepatitis C virus genotype distribution was studied among age groups in 501 referred patients with chronic hepatitis C by INNO-LiPA HCV II (Innogenetics, Belgium). Ten patients had coinfection with several genotypes. Two hundred seventy of 491 singly infected individuals (57%) had 1b, 66 (13.4%) 3a, 57 (11.6%) 1a. HCV subtype 1b was predominant but its prevalence increased with age (76.5% of patients born in the '20s, 39.3% in the '70s) (P < 0.0001). Three possibilities could explain the shift towards a wider variety of genotypes in younger age. (1) 1b could be the original subtypes in this population, (2) the non-1b subtypes could give less chronic carriers, (3) the non-1b subtypes could have a higher mortality, which seems improbable. The 1b genotype seems the oldest subtype in our country while others were imported later through increased population movements and changing habits.
de Moreau de Gerbehaye
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Université Catholique de Louvain, Hôpital Saint-Luc, Bruxelles, Belgium.
Bodéus
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Goubau
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D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D001530:Belgium / Q000453:epidemiology; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics*; D006784:Hospitals, Teaching; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015995:Prevalence; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric