BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) induces hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) mainly by causing chronic necroinflammatory hepatic disease. We investigated the mechanisms underlying the inflammatory hepatocarcinogenesis by examining whether genetic variations in cytokines, antioxidant enzymes, and DNA repair genes affect the HCC risk. METHODS We analyzed 10 polymorphisms in the genes for interleuk...

In sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific, and particularly Asia, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is highly endemic, the most common route of transmission is perinatal. To minimize the number of horizontal transmissions, we determined the prevalence of HBV genotypes among children in northern Thailand. From a survey of 1,231 schoolchildren in Chiang Mai during 1998 to 2000, 55 (4.5%) were found posi...

Although chronic HBV infection is the leading cause of chronic liver disease and death worldwide, there are substantial differences in its clinical courses regarding prevalence, mode of transmission, characteristics of each phase, responses to antiviral therapy, and development of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, according to geographical areas (Asia versus Western Europe and North Ameri...

Approximately 350 million people worldwide are persistently infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV) [1], which has been classified into 8 genotypes (A–H) by means of molecular evolutionary analyses [2–4]. HBV genotypes have different geographic distributions [5]. Genotype D is ubiquitous and scattered worldwide, whereas genotype A is prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, North America, and Eu-rope and...

BACKGROUND Mutations in basal core promoter (BCP) and precore regions of hepatitis B virus (HBV) are associated with course and treatment outcomes of chronic HBV infection. While BCP and precore mutation analysis have been carried out in adult patients between different genotypes, this analysis has rarely been performed for chronically infected children. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was t...

BACKGROUND Both natural history and treatment outcome of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are influenced by genotypes and viral load. Information about factors determining HBV genotype distribution and viraemia in HIV/HBV-co-infected patients is scarce. METHODS All HIV-positive patients living in Europe and Argentina recruited in EuroSIDA (1994-2006) were tested for serum HBV surface antigen...

INTRODUCTION Chronic hepatitis C cases diagnosed in Romania were mostly related to unsafe parenteral treatments and blood transfusions; HCV genotype 1b was prevalent. During the last decade, an increasing number of HCV infections was reported among people who inject drugs (PWID). The aim of the current study was to test if this epidemiological shift triggered a diversification of the circulatin...

Background/Aims: Antiviral resistance is a major challenge to the treatment currently available for hepatitis B virus (HBV). In this study, mutations that may affect the antiviral efficacy in treatment-naïve HBV-infected individuals were analyzed. Methods: Ninety-seven treatment-naïve HBV-infected individuals were included in this study. HBV reverse transcriptase (rt) domains were sequenced and...

INTRODUCTION Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotypes, replication status, and mutations have been associated with the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Our aim was to study the distribution and HCC-related viral properties of HBV genotypes/subgenotypes in Mainland China. METHODS A multistage cluster probability sampling method was applied to select 81,775 participants between 1 and 59 years a...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a public health problem in developing countries. HBV genotypes play major role in the evolution of infection since they were involved in different clinical presentations and response to treatment. OBJECTIVES This study was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis for HBV genotyping. PATIE...