background occult hepatitis b virus infection (obi) is defined as the presence of hepatitis b virus (hbv) dna in the liver and/or in the serum of patients with negative results of hepatitis b s antigen (hbsag) test with or without serological markers of previous viral exposure. the impact of obi in patients with chronic hepatitis c (chc) is still unclear. objectives the aim of this study was to...

conclusions this study showed a low rate of isolated anti-hbc and occult hbv infection in hd patients. it can be due to improvement of people’s knowledge about hbv transmission routes, hbv vaccination of hd patients and regular surveillance of hbv infection. results a hundredpatients with a mean age of 58.5 ± 16.1 years were enrolled in this study. in total, 56.7% were male and 43.3% female. an...

A combined hepatitis C virus (HCV) antigen-antibody assay was evaluated for 115 seronegative individuals with occult HCV infection. The assay was reactive in one patient and negative to weakly reactive in three others (all four gave indeterminate results by supplemental assay) but failed to detect HCV in the remaining patients. Despite increased sensitivity the combined assay does not improve s...

A persistent form of the hepatitis B virus called occult chronic hepatitis B has recently been described. Its prevalence and physiopathology are unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence of this clinical entity among patients in the Brazilian Amazon region. Out of 51 anti-HBc total-positive patients who were tested using the polymerase chain reaction, 17% were positive. We d...

OBJECTIVES We investigated the prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) markers and occult HBV infection in a general adult population in Korea. METHODS HBsAg, anti-HBs and anti-HBc were analyzed on 1,091 samples of routine medical check-up examinees by chemiluminescence immunoassay. Nucleic acid amplification test (NAT) was performed on 1,047 HBsAg-negative samples by multiplex real-time polyme...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-negative but hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA-positive infection-known as occult hepatitis B infection (OBI)-occurs in 1% to >15% of HIV-positive individuals in the United States and South Africa, respectively. However, there are no data on OBI from Botswana, a country known to be hyperendemic for chronic HBV infection and to have a significant HIV burd...

PURPOSE Occult hepatitis B infection (OBI) among HIV positive patients varies widely in different geographic regions. We undertook a study to determine the prevalence of occult hepatitis B infection among HIV infected individuals visiting a health facility in South West Cameroon and characterized occult HBV strains based on sequence analyses. METHODS Plasma samples (n = 337), which previously...

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...

conclusions the significant number of coinfected hiv-hcv patients only had hbcab positive test without detectable hbv-dna. further studies for detection of hbv-dna in both serum and liver biopsy specimens may help clarify the impact of hbv infection in coinfected hiv/hcv patients. results of 103 hiv-hcv coinfected patients, both hbsag and hbcab were positive in 7 patients (6.8%), negative in 44...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a well-recognized clinical entity characterized by the detection of HBV DNA in serum and/or liver in the absence of detectable hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). The frequency of the diagnosis depends on the relative sensitivity of both HBsAg and HBV DNA assays. We aimed at determining the prevalence of occult HBV infection in a hi...