Abstract

 Background and Objectives

 HBV and HCV are the most common types of viral hepatitis in thalassemia and hemdialysis patients. The most important risk factor in these two groups of patients is blood transfusion. This descriptive study was aimed to determine the prevalence rate of hepatitis B and C among dialysis and thalassemic patients.

 Materials and Methods

 This prospective cross-sectional study was performed on all thalassemic patients in South Khorasan and dialyzed patients in Birjand city. A questionnaire aimed to retrieve information about age, sex, frequency of annual blood transfusion, time of diagnosis, and history of vaccination was prepared. Their sera were tested for HBs Ag, anti-HBc, anti-HBs, and anti-HCV Ab by using Elisa third generation. SPSS software was finally used for data analysis.

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 Results

 Out of 38 thalassemic patients, 21 (54.1%) were male and 17 (45.9%) female. All of them had been vaccinated for HBV. Out of thalassemics, 56.8% were anti-HBs positive (CI 95% = 40.8-72.8). We also studied 30 dialyzed patients 66.7% of whom male. Out of the 30 dialyzed patients, 36.7% had been vaccinated for HBV with 26.7% being anti-HBs positive, 6.7% HBs Ag positive (CI 95% = 3.4-30) and 16.7% anti-HBc positive and statistical analysis showed no significant correlation between HBs Ag positivity and anti-HBs positivity (p= 0.36).

 Conclusions

 Our results showed that prevalence of HCV in thalassemic and dialysis patients was zero, while prevalence of HBV in multitransfused patients in this study was 3%. It is a reemphasis on the role of effective blood donor selection and screening in decreasing prevalence and incidence of infection.

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 Key words : Hepatitis B virus, Hepatitis C virus, Thalassemia, Dialysis