Evaluation of Seroprevalence of Hepatitis A Virus Infection Among Patients With Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Objective: Patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection that develop a superinfection due to hepatitis A virus (HAV), experience a more severe clinical picture compared to healthy individuals, and their underlying liver disease may exacerbate. Therefore, immunity to HAV should be investigated in patients with chronic HBV infection. In this study, it was aimed to investigate HAV serology among patients with chronic HBV infection, and to evaluate for immunization of seronegative cases. Methods: One hundred HBsAg-positive patients were included in the study. HAV serologies of patients with chronic HBV infection were evaluated for susceptibility to HAV infection. Sera were examined with chemiluminescence immunoassay using Architect i1000SR (Abbott Diagnostics, Singapore) analyzer. Statistical analyses were done with IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows. Version 20.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results: Of patients whose mean age was 44 (range, 20-82) years, 46 (46%) were female and 54 (54%) were male. Anti-HAV IgG was positive in 77 (77%) patients, and negative in 23 (23%) patients. When patients were grouped as under 40 and over 40 years, anti-HAV IgG negativity were 51% and 5%, respectively. Conclusions: Percentage of higher than 50% susceptibility to HAV infection was noteworthy among patients with chronic hepatitis B. Vaccination against hepatitis A should not be neglected for susceptible ones during the follow up of these patients.