Hepatitis C Virus Antibody among Chronic Hemodialysis Patients and Predialysis Renal Failure Patients

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Hepatitis C virus antibody (anti-HCV) was examined among 540 chronic hemodialysis (HD) patients and 50 predialysis renal failure patients in Fukuoka, Japan. The anti-HCV positive rate was significantly greater in HD patients with a history of blood transfusion than those without it regardless of sexes (males : 37.9% vs 15.8%, p<0.01 and females : 32.3% vs 4.5%, p<0.01) as we reported previously. The result confirmed that blood transfusion is a major route of HCV infection. However, the risk of HCV infection among nontransfused HD patients was still 5.08 times higher compared to blood donors (p<0.001) after adjusting age and sex. On the other hand, anti-HCV positive rate among predialysis renal failure patients was lower than the rate among nontransfused HD patients (2.0% vs 11.8%, p<0.05) and was not different from that among blood donors (O/E=0.63, NS). In addition, anti-HCV positive rate increased with the duration of HD treatment regardless of sex or a history of blood transfusion. These results suggest that renal failure itself does not seem to increase the risk of HCV infection. J Epidemiol, 1993; 3 : 7-10.