Infection with a novel human DNA virus (TTV) has no pathogenic significance in patients with liver diseases

Background/Aims: A recently identified DNA virus, termed TT virus (TTV), ha s been associated with post-transfusional hepatitis, and a high prevalence of TTV infection in patients with acute or chronic liver disease of unknown etiology has been reported from Japan, but few data are available about TT V infection in other countries, Methods: Using hemi-nested-PCR amplification to detect TTV-DNA sequences in serum, we investigated TTV infection in blood donors and in patients with liver diseases of varied etiology, Results: The prevalence of TTV infection was 13.7% in blood donor,s (23/168 ), 18.6% in chronic hepatitis C (19/102), 28.6% in chronic hepatitis Il (16 /56), 29.9% in hepatocellular carcinoma (20/67), 9.1% in cryptogenic chroni c liver disease (2/22) and 39.6% in fulminant hepatitis (19/48), The preval ence of TTV infection in patients with virus-induced or idiopathic fulminan t hepatitis was similar. Comparison of TTV-infected and non-infected patien ts did not reveal significant differences concerning demographic, epidemiol ogical or histopathological features. In patients with hepatitis C, respons e to interferon therapy was not related to TTV infection, Phylogenetic anal ysis of TTV isolates showed that at least three different types of TTV are present in Spain. Conclusions: Our data suggest that TTV infection is frequent among blood do nors and patients with acute liver disease. However, pathogenic effects ass ociated with Tm infection were not observed.