Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27213092›Full record

ArticleAnnals of medical and health sciences research

Viral Load Pattern Among Hepatitis B Surface Antigen-positive Patients: Laboratory Perspective and Implications for Therapy.

K C Iregbu, P I Nwajiobi-Princewill

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Article in Annals of medical and health sciences research. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
0.5field-weighted citation impact, top 30% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

K C IregbuDepartment of Medical Microbiology, National Hospital, Garki, Abuja, Nigeria.
P I Nwajiobi-PrincewillDepartment of Medical Microbiology, National Hospital, Garki, Abuja, Nigeria.
National Hospital Abuja · NG

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundHepatitis B viral infection is an old medical problem with worldwide distribution. It is usually diagnosed using serologic methods. However, the decision as to which patient to treat or not remains challenging due to the poor sensitivity of serologic markers as prognostic or severity markers. Viral load (VL) determination using polymerase chain reaction techniques is a useful tool in decision-making.

aimTo determine the proportion of hepatitis B-positive patients who fall into different care groups based on the Society for Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Nigeria (SOGHIN) and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, respectively, using result of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA determination. MATERIALS AND

methodsThis is a retrospective and descriptive study. Data from all patients sent to the medical microbiology laboratory, National Hospital Abuja over a period of 28 months (November 2012 to February 2015) for hepatitis B DNA VL determinations were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) and IBM SPSS version 20.0 (IBM SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).

resultsA total 666 patients, with mean age of 33.2 years, were tested. For those whose ages were known 36.2% (100/276) were below 30 years and 63.8% (176/276) 30 years and above. Exactly 66.7% (444/666) were males and the remaining 33.3% (222/666) were females. The VL of the patients varied from 20 to 1.7 × 10(8) IU/ml, with an average of 3.5 × 10(6) IU/ml. Around 76.1% (507/666) had measurable assay levels (20 - 1.7 × 10(8) IU/ml); 10.8% (76/666) had below 20 IU/ml and 3.8% (25/666) above 1.7 × 10(8) IU/ml. About 9.3% (62/666) had no detectable HBV DNA in their samples. About 46.8% (312/666) of the patients had levels between 20 and 2 × 10(3) IU/ml; 16.4% (109/666) had between 2001 and 2 × 10(4) IU/ml while 16.7% (111/666) had VL of between 20,001 and 1.7 × 10(8) IU/ml. Males tended to have detectable and higher VLs than females (P = 0.04).

conclusionHBV DNA assay used in accordance with existing treatment guidelines will improve quality of care. To avoid unnecessary liver biopsy, there is a need to further fine-tune the SOGHIN guidelines.

Indexed as

Hepatitis BSurface antigenViral DNA assay

Identifiers

PMID27213092
PMCPMC4866374
OpenAlexW2345979736

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LicenceCC BY-NC-SA
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.