Background: The risk of infection by transfusion-transmitted viruses has been reduced remarkably. However, a zero-risk blood supply is still desirable. The screening for antibody to HBc (anti-HBc) has been shown as an alternative test for the detection of HBV infection. Objective: The main aim of this study was to evaluate HBV infection markers and the potential value of anti-HBc testing of blo...

Editorial Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the major human health problems worldwide. It is estimated that chronic HBV infection affects more than 350 million people globally, spreading in every continent in Asia, America, Europe, and Africa. Despite the huge number of HBV infected cases, it has not received enough attention as it should be in term of research funding and media cover...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is highly endemic in most Asian countries (Nguyen and Keeffe, 2003) and between 30% and 50% of Chinese immigrants to North America show serologic evidence of past HBV infection (Walker and Jaranson, 1999; Merican et al., 2000). In 2004, approximately 250,000 persons in Canada were infected with HBV, 70% being immigrants (Sherman et al., 2004). Immigrants from c...

BACKGROUND To investigate the risk of hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients with HBV carrier state during treatment of disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and the use of antiviral prophylaxis in real-world clinical practice. METHODS Consecutive RA patients with HBV carrier state were included. Clinical data including liver evaluation, HBV infect...

Despite the availability of an effective vaccine against hepatitis B virus (HBV), chronic infection with the virus remains a major global health concern. Current drugs against HBV infection are limited by emergence of resistance and rarely achieve complete viral clearance. This has prompted vigorous research on developing better drugs against chronic HBV infection. Advances in understanding the...

PURPOSE: To determine prevalence of positive HBV DNA in liver tissue samples in patients with chronic HCV infection (CHCV) and to investigate whether there is an association between it and underlying clinical condition. METHODE: For the period 2004 – 2010 in the Gastroenterology Clinic at the Military Medical Academy – Sofia, 96 patients CHCV (77% males, 23% females, mean age 50, 5 ± 10, 02 yea...

Chronic infection with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) affects an estimate of 240 million people worldwide despite the availability of a preventive vaccine. Medication to repress viral replication is available but a cure is rarely achieved. The narrow species and tissue tropism of the virus and the lack of reliable in vitro models and laboratory animals susceptible to HBV infection, have limited re...

MicroRNA polymorphisms may be associated with carcinogenesis or immunopathogenesis of infection. We evaluated whether the mircoRNA-604 (miR-604) polymorphism can affect the persistence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, and the development to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with chronic HBV infection. A total of 1,439 subjects, who have either past or present HBV infection, were e...

Introduction: Occurrence of detectable amounts of viral antigen or viral particles in the blood of infected patients with Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a significant characteristic of HBV infection. Detection of HBV antigen or its DNA among individuals of a community is a crucial factor to know the burden of HBV infection. Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is a suitable marker of HBV infection b...