Seroprevalence of hepatitis B: do blood donors represent the general population?

INTRODUCTION In this study, we aimed to compare the HBV seroprevalances of voluntary blood donors and the healthy persons who required premarital screening. METHODOLOGY HBsAg ELISA results were collected retrospectively from the records of 9,949 blood donors and 954 healthy persons who required premarital screening. RESULTS HBsAg was detected in 182 of 9,949 (%1.8) voluntary blood donors and  32 of  954 (%3.4) healthy persons who required premarital screening. HBsAg seropositivity was significiantly higher in the healthy persons who required premarital screening than in blood donors (p = 0.0016). CONCLUSION Premarital screening is mandatory in our country, and it may provide more accurate epidemiological data to determine HBV seroprevalence than in other selected groups such as blood donors.