HEPATITIS-C VIRUS GENOTYPES IN HEMODIALYZED PATIENTS - A MULTICENTRICSTUDY

The few studies concerning HCV genotypes in hemodialyzed patients conc erned small groups of patients, issued from single units. Using the RF LP typing method in the 5' non-coding region (5' NCR), we performed th e genotyping of HCV strains of 80 patients issued from 14 Belgian dial ysis units. Forty-seven of the 80 patients were also tested by Inno-Li pa II (Innogenetics, Gent, Belgium). Sixty-four of 80 patients (80%) w ere infected with subtype 1b, 2 (2.5%) with subtype 1a, 6 (7.5%) with subtype 2a and 1 (1%) with subtype 2b; 6 patients (7.5%) showed a type 4 and 2 patients (2.5%) a type 5 infection, respectively. Only 1 pati ent (1%) showed a mixed infection (1a and 1b). In the 47 patients test ed by both methods, we observed a very good agreement (98%) between RF LP and Inno-Lipa II's results. Our multicentric study detected HCV gen otypes 4 or 5 in 8/80 (10%) of hemodialyzed patients in Belgium. The s ubstantial prevalence of these genotypes could not be fully explained by a nosocomial spread of HCV infection: indeed, four patients belonge d to dialysis units located in different cities, and two appeared infe cted with distinct subtypes in a same unit. Thus, the discovery of a ' 'rare'' HCV genotype in several hemodialyzed patients does not always point to nosocomial HCV transmission.