Hepatitis B virus markers in clustering infected family in China

    HE Yingª²Li, ZHAO Yingª²Ren, GAO Heng,ZHANG Shuª²Lin, YANG Yuan, CHEN Yunª²Ru£¬LIU Jinª²Feng

    Department of Infectious Diseases, First Hospital, Xi¬ðan Jiaotong University, Xi¬ðan 710061, China

    ¡¾Abstract¡¿ AIM: To determine the spread of HBV virological profile of Chinese clustering infected families with threeª²generation genetic information. METHODS£º All the patients who referred to our department were questioned for HBV family history from 2002 to 2005. For those families with threeª²generation or more genetic information, their blood were drawn after signed informª²consents were obtained and tested for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), antibody to HBsAg (antiª²HBs), hepatitis Be antigen (HBeAg), antibody to HBe(antiª²HBe) and antibody to hepatitis B core antigen (antiª²HBc) using commercially available enzymeª²linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA). HBV genome copies in serum were tested by realª²time quantitive PCR. The first member of a family identified as a virus carrier was considered an index case. All study subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire designed by Epiinfo software on general data, history, results of serologic analysis, and kinship to the index case. All the data of each subject was input into computer for statistic analysis. RESULTS£º A total of 237 serum samples of 27 familes were tested. Out of 237 index cases and household contact subjects, 45.6%, 5.9%, 26.7%, 11.8%, 62.9%, 28.3% subjects were identified HBsAg, antiª²HBs, HBeAg, antiª²HBe, antiª²HBc, HBV DNA positive respectively. The patients with positive HBV DNA, HBeAg or HBsAg were predominantly male and the mumber peaked at the age of 18 and 45 years old. CONCLUSION£º The seroprevalence of HBV markers in clustering infected family is different from that in general population; the infected individuals have a natural course of chronic HBV infection and mostly are infected as they are infants, which is probably associated with host genetic susceptibility to HBV. ......