Recent advances in liver disease

Mohammadali F, Pourfathollah AA. Changes in frequency of HBV, HCV, HIV and syphilis infections among blood donors in Tehran province 2005 2011. Arch Iran Med 2014; 17(9)613-620 The routine screening of blood donors for potentially transmissible infections has reduced transfusion-associated infection whilst providing an insight into disease prevalence. This retrospective cross-sectional study evaluates the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency (HIV) and syphilis infection in 2,026,628 potential blood donors screened at Tehran Blood Transfusion Centre from 2005 to 2011. One or more transmissible infections were identified in 0.52% of donors (mean age 38±10.5 y, 95% male) with greater prevalence in first time donors. The average prevalence rate of HBV, HCV, syphilis and HIV was 388, 112, 10.5 and 5.4 per 100,000 respectively. A decreasing prevalence rate of HBV was identified from 2005 to 2011 and of HCV from 2007 to 2011. This may have resulted from increased vaccination, screening and health education. Although an interesting insight into disease prevalence in the donor population, caution should be exercised in extrapolating these results to the wider population in view of sampling bias.