ArticleBMC infectious diseases2020
Retrospective analysis of acute HBV infections occurred in 1978-79 and 1994-95 in North-East Italy: increasing prevalence of BCP/pre-core mutants in sub-genotype D3.
Article in BMC infectious diseases, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAt the end of the 1970s, in Italy more than 2% of the general population was HBsAg carrier. In the late '70s and late '80s, two remarkable events might have impacted on HBV strains transmitted in North-East Italy: (a) the increased HBV incidence due to parenteral drugs between 1978 and 1982; (b) the preventive anti-HIV educational campaign, started locally in 1985.
methodsTo address if those events impacted on circulating HBV variants, acute cases occurred in North-East Italy in 1978-79 (n = 50) and 1994-95 (n = 30) were retrospectively analysed. HBV sequences obtained from serum samples were subjected to phylogenetic analysis and search for BCP/pre-core and S mutations.
resultsHBV-D was the most prevalent genotype in both 1978-79 (43/50, 86%) and 1994-95 (24/30, 80.0%), with HBV-A in all but one remaining cases. Among HBV-D cases, sub-genotype HBV-D3 was the most prevalent (25/29, 86.2% in 1978-79; 13/16, 81.2% in 1994-95), with HBV-D1 and HBV-D2 in the remaining cases. All HBV-A cases were sub-genotype A2. Single and multiple BCP/pre-core mutations, responsible for HBeAg(-) hepatitis, were detected in 6/50 (12%) cases in 1978/79 vs. 12/30 (40.0%) in 1994/95 (p = 0.006). They were found exclusively in HBV-D; in the most abundant sub-genotype, HBV-D3, they were detected in 2/25 (8%) cases in 1978-79 vs. 6/13 (46%) in 1994-95 (p = 0.011). No vaccine escape S mutations were observed. The IDU risk factor was significantly more frequent in 1994-95 (8/30, 26.7%) than in 1978-79 (4/50, 8%) (p = 0.048).
conclusionsThe above mentioned epidemiological and public health events did not affect the proportion of genotypes and sub-genotypes that remained unchanged over 16 years. In contrast, the proportion of BCP/pre-core mutants increased more than three-fold, mostly in HBV-D3, a sub-genotype highly circulating in IDUs; drug abuse likely contributed to the spread of these mutants. The findings contribute to explain a previously described major change in HBV epidemiology in Italy: the proportion of HBeAg(-) cases in the carrier cohort changed from low in late 1970s, to high at the beginning of the 2000s. In addition to other recognized factors, the increased circulation of BCP/pre-core mutants likely represents a further factor that contributed to this change.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.