By the end of 1970s, Italy was a country at medium endemic level of hepatitis B virus infection, with wide geographical differences; intrafamily transmission was the major mode by which infection spread; hepatitis B e antigen positivity and hepatitis Delta positivity were frequently detected in hepatitis B surface antigen chronic carriers; a high proportion of subjects with chronic liver diseas...

Dear Editor, The number of publications plays a major role in assessing scientific progress in different countries. To determine the status of our country in terms of the number of published papers in indexed peer-reviewed medical journals, we searched MEDLINE/PubMed. This database belongs to the National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest biomedical library located in Bethesda, Maryland,...