Association of Hepatitis G with Chronic Unknown Hepatitis in a military population

Hepatitis G is a hepatotrope virus with unknown importance. Its prevalence among blood donors reaches about 4. 8%. The genome of the virus has been detected in patients with acute or chronic non A-E hepatitis، cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of hepatitis G with unknown chronic hepatitis. This is a case-control study performed in Ebne-Sina Army Hospital in Hamadan. The case group was military staff with unknown chronic hepatitis and the control was healthy subjects. Chronic hepatitis was defined as elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT≥40 international unit per liter) for at least six month. Both case and control group were evaluated for common cause of chronic hepatitis such as viral hepatitis B or C، fatty liver and drug consumption and by any of these reason will excluded from the survey. Then HGV antibody was detected by ELISA method on 5 milliliter serum samples. Data analyzed by SPSS-18 software using Fisher’s exact test، Student’s t-test، and multivariate logistic regression test. A total of 94 patients were selected، which included 35 patients with chronic unknown hepatitis (cases) and 59 healthy subjects (controls). Only one patient in the case group was HGV antibody positive (2. 9%)، compare to no one of the control. However، there was no difference between the two groups in HGV antibody frequency (P = 0. 372). According to this survey، there was no association between HGV infection and chronic hepatitis.