PREVALENCE AND CLINICAL-SIGNIFICANCE OF HEPATITIS-G VIRUS-INFECTION IN ADULT BETA-THALASSEMIA MAJOR PATIENTS

The risk of polytransfused patients for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infect ion is likely to extend to another recently identified member of the F laviviridae, hepatitis G virus (HGV), We investigated the prevalence o f HGV in 40 adult Italian patients with transfusion-dependent thalassa emia and evaluated the clinical significance of KGV infection. HGV-RNA was detected in 9/40 patients (22.5%). HGV infection was significantl y associated with HCV viraemia (P = 0.0012), with all patients positiv e for HGV being also viraemic for HCV. Overall. the clinical picture o f patients with HCV/HGV co-infection was not different from that of pa tients with isolated HCV However, patients co-infected with both virus es had lower values of alanine-transferase (P = 0.035) and a lower tit re of HCV viraemia (P = 0.042) in the absence of other evident factors which could influence the clinical expression of HCV infection. In co nclusion, HGV is highly prevalent among Italian polytransfused patient s. No evidence of a clinically significant pathogenic role for HGV in liver disease could be found in these patients. In a subset of cases a possible interference of HGV with HCV infection was observed.