Abstract
Aims: 1) Describe virological profile of patients followed-up for chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV); 2) Search for a correlation between cirrhosis and virological profile of patients. Patients and Methods: Retrospective study about 75 HBsAg positive patients followed-up for at least one year in two medical structures of Abidjan. Studied parameters: clinical signs, biological check-up (serum transaminases every 3 months for at least one year, platelets count and prothrombin rate), abdominal echography, virological check-up (HBsAg, HBeAg, anti-HBe, total anti-HBc, anti-VHC and anti- HIV Ab, HBV DNA biannual quantification during at least one year). Histological or biochemical evaluation of hepatic activity and fibrosis were realized in case of transaminases elevation or HBV DNA > 2000 IU/ml. Results: The mean age of our 75 patients (54 men) was 42.1 ± 11.54 years. HBV was fortuitously discovered in most of our patients (74.7% of the cases). The HBV inactive chronic carriage was 50.7%; HBeAg-positive and HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis represented respectively 9.3% and 40% of the cases. Mean B viral load was 327.5 IU/ml in HBV inactive chronic carriers, 44,047,663 IU/ml in HBeAg-positive chronic HBV and 20,231,822 IU/ml in HBeAg-negative chronic HBV. Cirrhosis prevalence was significantly high- er in positive or negative HBeAg chronic HBV than in HBV inactive chronic carriers (32.4% vs. 5.3%, p = 0.008; OR = 8.6). Conclusion: Our patients’ virological profile was dominated by HBeAg-negative chronic HBV and HBV inactive chronic carriage. The risk of having cirrhosis was multiplied by 8.6 in case of active chronic hepatitis compared with HBV inactive chronic carriage.
Highlights
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection is a real-world problem of public health and more in high-prevalence areas such as sub-Saharan Africa [1,2,3,4] owing to its evolutionary complications and management difficulties in the particular context of our country with limited financial resources
We noted no new case of cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) during the follow-up of the patients included in the study
Most of our patients were HBV inactive chronic carriers (50.7%) or had HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis (40%). These results confirm those of several studies carried out in sub-Saharan Africa; in those studies, prevalence of HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis varied from 5% to 25% [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]
Summary
Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) infection is a real-world problem of public health and more in high-prevalence areas such as sub-Saharan Africa [1,2,3,4] owing to its evolutionary complications (cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma) and management difficulties in the particular context of our country with limited financial resources. Though there are numerous works on HBV infection prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa, we get fewer data on the virological profile of HBsAg-positive patients with an informed consent longitudinal follow-up. The present study aimed at describing the HBV virological profile in 75 HBsAg positive patients followed-up in two medical structures of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoirefor at least one year and searching for a correlation between the existence of cirrhosis and patients’ virological profile
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