Peripheral blood count disorders at the beginning of icteric phase of hepatitis A in adults according to clinical form.
OBJECTIVE
Hepatitis A remains a common cause of morbidity in developing countries, sometimes affecting adults. The aim of this study was to determine the age and sex distribution of adult hepatitis A patients, the seasonal appearance of disease and the possible peripheral blood count (PBC) disorders at the beginning of the icteric phase in different clinical forms of the disease.


METHODS
The retrospective study was carried out during 1987-1990, with 106 adult hepatitis A patients assigned to 1 of 3 subgroups: typical (74 patients), prolonged (28 patients) and cholestatic forms of hepatitis A (4 patients) whose PBC was analysed at the beginning of the icteric phase of the disease. The hypothesis of the study was that there were significant differences between mean values of PBC in different subgroups. In data analysis, Student's ''t''-test was performed where appropriate.


RESULTS
Fifteen (53.8%) males and 49 (46.2%) females were involved in the study (median age 24.7 years). Most of them were hospitalized at the end of Summer and Autumn. Significant differences were observed neither in mean values of red blood count (RBC) nor platelet count among studied groups. Mild leucopenia was found in the vast majority of patients. In the differential count, only the monocyte count showed a slightly significant difference between prolonged form (4%) and typical form (3%), (t=2.35, p<0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
There is no single reason to use peripheral blood count as a specific diagnostic marker in setting the diagnosis of hepatitis A, except for its importance as a relative laboratory indicator of infection of viral origin.
Cvjetković
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Clinic for Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.
Hrnjaković Cvjetković
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