Frequency of HBV variants among Egyptian patients with acute and chronic liver disease

ABSTRACT

In this work 94 Egyptian patients [54 patients with chronic liver disease and 40 with acute hepatitis] were studied by clinical, biochemical, parasitological, and serological methods. Histopathological study of the liver was done for 35 out of the first group. The aim of this work is to study the frequency of HBV variants in Egypt, and their effects on the liver. The following results were obtained A- In the group of chronic liver disease - Five out of 22 HBsAg positive patients [22.7 percent] were having wild HBV infection. Ten of the 22 patients [45.5 percent] had HBV mutant infection. HBV DNA was positive in 4/32 [12.5 percent] of HBsAg negative patients. Liver enzymes and bilirubin were significantly higher in HBV DNA positive patients than in the negative ones. No statistically significant differences were found in histopathological lesions in the HBV DNA positive group compared to the HBV DNA negative group. B. In the group of acute hepatitis HBV DNA was positive in ten out of 17 HBsAg +ve patients [58.8 percent], out of these ten patients six [60 percent] were having the mutant virus. AST and ALT were significantly higher in the last six patients [mutant] than in the other cases of acute hepatitis