title: Age trend in hepatitis C virus genotype distribution as seen in a Brussels teaching hospital.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Université Catholique de Louvain, Hôpital Saint-Luc, Bruxelles, Belgium.
authors.forename: A I
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: de Moreau de Gerbehaye
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bodéus
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Goubau
mesh_terms: 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