The investigation of occult hepatitis B infection in hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and predialysis patients by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method.

The presence of hepatitis B virus DNA in case of negative hepatitis B surface antigen in serum is known as occult hepatitis B. Although their exact prevalance is not known, there are many reports indicating that occult hepatitis B are more frequently encountered in patients undergoing hemodialysis treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of occult hepatitis B in patients with hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and predialytic chronic renal failure.A total of 174 HBsAg-negative sera were included to the study. HBV-DNA was detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 2.6% of hemodialysis patients and 1.8% of peritoneal dialysis patients. In contrast, there was no occult hepatitis B virus infection in non-dialyzed patients with chronic renal failure. According to the liver enzymes and serum CRP levels, there was no statistically difference (p>0.05) between the occult hepatitis B positive patients and the negative patients.In conclusion, although it was a low rate, the occult hepatitis B infections was detected among dialysis patients in our study. Therefore, in spite of serologic analysis, both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis patients should be screened for occult HBV infections by a more sensitive test such as PCR, in order to prevent the dialysis-mediated transmision risk of HBV infection.