title: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypes in Egyptian pediatric cancer patients with acute and chronic active HBV infection.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There are eight genotypes of hepatitis B virus (A-H) and subgenotypes are recognized. Genotyping can be accomplished based on a partial sequence of HBV genome such as the pre-S or S gene. Several methods have been developed and used for HBV genotyping. This study was undertaken to determine the HBV genotypes in Egyptian pediatric cancer patients with acute and chronic liver disease.
  
  
  METHODS
  HBV genotypes were determined in 22 patients who had acute forms of liver disease (AH) and in 48 patients with chronic active hepatitis (CAH). A type-specific primer based the nested-PCR method was employed in the HBV genotyping.
  
  
  RESULTS
  This study showed that HBV infections in pediatric cancer patients are attributed predominantly to viral genotypes D and B that constituted 37.1% and 25.7%, respectively of the total infections. In addition, there was a relatively high prevalence of mixed infections of 15.7% among the studied group especially mixed A/D genotype infections. Genotype D was found significantly more often in patients with CAH than in patients with AH [23/48(47.9%) v 3/22 (13.6%)].
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings show the distribution of HBV A-D genotypes in pediatric cancer Egyptian patients. Furthermore, our results indicate a markedly high prevalence of mixed A/D genotype infections in subjects with CAH and a possible association of mixed infections with the severity of liver diseases.
authors.affiliation: Virology and Immunology Unit, Cancer Biology Department, National Cancer Institute, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. ncizekri@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Abdel-Rahman N
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Zekri
authors.forename: Mohamed M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Hafez
authors.forename: Nahed I
authors.initials: NI
authors.lastname: Mohamed
authors.forename: Zeinab K
authors.initials: ZK
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.forename: Manal H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: El-Sayed
authors.forename: Mohsen M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Khaled
authors.forename: Tarek
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mansour
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004534:Egypt / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000821:virology*; D006515:Hepatitis B virus / Q000235:genetics*; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D015995:Prevalence