الفهرس 
Introduction and RationaleOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
HCV infection is a worldwide infection associated with an increased disease burden due to liver cirrhosis and considerable mortality. Despite screening of blood products for anti-HCV and implementation of precaution measures, HCV infection is still a major problem in hemodialysis units. A new entity of HCV infection was described in patients with persistently elevated liver function tests with no clinical evidence of liver disease and who were anti-HCV and serum HCV RNA negative termed “occult HCV infection”.
To the best of our knowledge, the prevalence of occult hepatitis C virus infection among patients on regular hemodialysis in Egypt is not available. So, we tried in this work to (1) study the existence of occult HCV infection by testing for genomic HCV-RNA in PBMC of hemodialysis patients and (2) describe the characteristics of these patients compared to overt HCV patients who are also on regular hemodialysis. The overall aim of this study is to know if there is a need to regularly check for occult HCV in the blood of patients who are subjected to regular hemodialysis or not. This will reduce the potential transmission of HCV to other HCV free patients on hemodialysis.
To achieve these aims, a cross sectional analytic study was conducted in the hemodialysis units in Ismailia university hospitals, Ismailia General Hospital, and Ismailia center for hemodialysis. We enrolled two groups of patients; group 1 (negative hepatitis markers group) that included 204 clinically stable adult patients undergoing regular hemodialysis at hemodialysis centers in Ismailia hospitals between January 2013 to February 2015 who are negative for HCV Abs, HCV RNA and HBsAg in the sera.
group 2 (positive or overt HCV group) included 22 chronic HCV patients with positive anti-HCV Abs and HCV RNA and negative for HBsAg who were on regular hemodialysis at the same centers as the first group.
Detailed history was taken and thorough clinical examination was done. Samples of serum and PBMCs were collected from all patients. Anti-HCV antibodies were assayed. HCV RNA in serum and PBMCs were tested by RT-PCR.
The findings of positive patients for occult HCV infection were compared to those who were negative to occult HCV infection and to those who were positive for overt HCV infection.