HIGH PREVALENCE OF HEPATITIS-G VIREMIA AMONG KIDNEY-TRANSPLANT PATIENTS IN THAILAND

Patients receiving kidney transplants (KT) are at high risk for blood borne viral infections. To determine the prevalence of a recently disc overed hepatitis G virus (HGV) in this patient group, reverse transcri ption-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) employing primers derived fro m the NS5 region of the viral genome was utilized. HGV RNA was detecte d in 40 of 94 KT patients (43%), as compared to 3 of 69 healthy subjec ts (4.3%). Cocirculation of HGV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA was de tected in 12 patients (13%). Comparison of patients with and without H GV revealed that the former had received hemodialysis before transplan tation for a significantly longer duration than the latter (28 vs. 17 months, respectively; P < 0.05), The amount of blood transfused and me an levels of liver enzymes, including alkaline phosphatase, alanine tr ansaminase, and aspartate transaminase, were the same in both groups. Sequence analysis of 275-base pair DNA clones obtained from 2 patients revealed approximately 92% sequence homology to the published HGV and GB virus C sequences. These results suggested that HGV infection amon g Thai KT patients was high and the role of HGV in causing liver disea se remains to be determined. (C) 1997 Wiley-Lies, Inc.