BACKGROUND Co-infections of hepatitis B and C viruses are frequent with HIV due to shared routes of transmission. In most of the tertiary care health settings, HIV reactive patients are routinely tested for HBsAg and anti-HCV antibodies to rule out these co-infections. However, using the routine serological markers one can only detect active HBV infection while the occult HBV infection may be m...

diagnosis of hepatitis b is routinely based on of serological assay of hepatitis b surface antigen (hbsag). occult hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection is generally defined as the detection of hbv -dna in the serum or tissues of subjects who have negative test for hbsag. transmission of hbv infection has been documented from hbsag negative, anti-hbc positive blood and organ donors. the aim of this...

CONTEXT The clinical outcome of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is variable, ranging from spontaneous recovery to an inactive carrier state, chronic hepatitis, occult HBV infection, liver cirrhosis, or hepatocellular carcinoma. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION This variable pattern and clinical outcomes of the infection were mainly determined by virological and host genetic factors. Since the most of h...

Corticosteroid therapy is known to be hazardous in patients with occult infection but the mechanism by which the host parasite relationship is altered by steroids is not known. We have used an intestinal protozoal parasite, Giardia muris, to examine the effects of corticosteroids on the number of parasites in the intestine in the course of a primary infection. A single injection of cortisone ac...

background and objective: although hepatitis b vaccine immunogenicity is high, certain risk factors such as age, tobacco consumption, obesity and genetic background have been associated with low responsiveness to hbv vaccine. we aimed to evaluate the role of occult hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection in non-responder adults to hbv vaccine in a low endemic area for hbv. material and methods : a to...

Anti-HBc positivity is a frequent cause of donation rejection at blood banks. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection may also occur in HBsAg-negative patients, a situation denoted occult infection. Similarly, very low levels of HBV-DNA have also been found in the sera of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, even in the absence of serum HBsAg. Initially we searched for HBV-DNA in ...

Recovery from an acute hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is associated with loss of HBV DNA from serum, hepatitis B e antigen seroconversion, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) seroconversion, and normalization of serum aminotransferases. These changes generally imply clearance of virus, but clinical observations have shown that reactivation of HBV infection can occur either spontaneously or a...

Stool specimens of 1238 workers in western region of Saudi Arabia were examined for infection with intestinal parasites and for fecal occult blood (FOB) to investigate the possibility that enteroparasites correlate to occult intestinal bleeding. Direct smears and formal ether techniques were used for detection of diagnostic stages of intestinal parasites. A commercially available guaiac test wa...

Although occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections in individuals without detectable hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) may occur and have been reported to be common in patients with chronic hepatitis C, the clinical relevance remains controversial. We searched for serum HBV DNA in 210 HBsAg-negative patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related liver disease (110 patients with chronic hepatit...