Prevalence of HCV infection at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital

Abstract

Background : Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of liver cancer in Thailand. The prevalence of the genotypes of HCV varies according to the geographical location. There is the scarcity of data on the distribution
of HCV genotypes in Bangkok.

Objective : The aims of this study were to determine the seroprevalence, genotype distribution from patients of King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Bangkok.

Methods : This 4-year cross-sectional evaluation of hepatitis C virus infections that involved all patients of King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital from January 2012 to December 2015; one thousand two hundred and sixty-two
out of 33,911 patients (3.7%) were positive for anti-HCV by CMIA (Chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay); 544 HCV antibodypositive patients (353 men and 191 women; mean age 52.6 years) were analyzed for HCV-RNA by the COBAS TaqMan HCV test of real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and genotyped by the Linear Array HCV Genotyping test (both from Roche).

Results : Six hundred and seventy-two out of 1,262 anti-HCV positive patients (773 men and 489 women; mean age 51.9 years) were analysed for HCV genotype and 544 patients were positive by RT-PCR of the 52' UTR. The core region of the 544 representative patients was sequenced allowing classification into genotype variants 1 (48.5%), 2 (1.1%), 3 (45.4%), 6 (1.5%) and mixed (3.5%).

Conclusion : Hepatitis C seroprevalence rate among patients at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital was 3.7%. The most common genotypes were genotypes 1 and 3. This information might be essential for public health surveillance and prevention of HCV infection.