Abstract

SILVA, Jéfferson Luis de Almeida; COELHO, Maria Rosângela Cunha Duarte; SOUZA, Veridiana Sales Barbosa de  and  DOMINGUES, Ana Lúcia Coutinho. Seroprevalence of Hepatitis C in schistosomiasis patients. Rev. Para. Med. [online]. 2008, vol.22, n.1, pp.27-32. ISSN 0101-5907.

OBJECTIVE: to research the anti-HCV antibody prevalence in patients diagnosed with mansonic schistosomiasis. METHOD: serum samples of 184 patients attending the Gastroenterology Clinics of Hospital das Clínicas da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco were tested for anti-HCV by a third generation ELISA (Wiener^®) according to the manufacturer's instructions. RESULTS: a positive result for anti-HCV was detected in 22 patients, establishing a prevalence of 11.9%. Among coinfected of both sexes, 90.9% had presented hepatosplenic schistosomiasis and 54.5% had had blood transfusion. Analyzing the endoscopy in the past, all coinfected male patients and 81.8% of coinfected females had undergone endoscopy previously. CONCLUSIONS: the prevalence of anti-HCV in schistosomiasis patients was high. Blood transfusion and particularly digestive endoscopy were shown as probable infection sources.

Keywords : Anti-HCV; schistosomiasis; coinfection; prevalence.

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