Absence of infection in breast-fed infants born to hepatitis C virus-infected mothers,☆☆,,★★

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Abstract

The role of breast-feeding in perinatal transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) was explored in 15 HCV-infected mothers and their infants. The 15 carrier mothers had anti-HCV titers ranging from 1:80 to 1:40,000 and also had HCV-ribonucleic acid with concentrations ranging from 104 to 2.5 × 108 copies/ml. Both anti-HCV antibody and HCV-ribonucleic acid were present in colostral samples in much lower levels, but none of the 11 breast-fed infants had evidence of HCV infection for up to 1 year of age. Thus breast-feeding seems safe for these infants. (J PEDIATR 1995;126:589-91)

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Subjects

Between April 1992 and January 1993, we recruited 15 carrier mothers with anti-HCV antibody from among 40 pregnant HCV carriers described in our previous studies, 5, 6 and 3 healthy mothers as control subjects. Maternal blood, 10 ml, and colostrum, 10 ml, were taken from each subject within 5 days post partum. For colostral samples, the yellowish fat in the top layer was removed after centrifugation at 1000g and 4° C for 30 minutes, and the supernatant was collected.7 The precipitate was washed

RESULTS

All 15 mothers with, and the three mothers without, anti-HCV antibody had no anti-HIV antibody. The anti-HCV and HCV-RNA titers for maternal serum and colostrum are shown in the Table. The reciprocal anti-HCV titers of the 15 carrier mothers ranged from 1:80 to 1:40,000, and serum HCV-RNA was present in all; the three healthy mothers had negative results. By the competitive PCR assay, HCV-cDNA concentrations in the 15 maternal sera ranged from 104 to 2.5 × 108 copies/ml. Comparing anti-HCV

DISCUSSION

In contrast to previous studies indicating that HCV-RNA cannot be detected in the milk of HCV carrier mothers,2, 3 our data show that both anti-HCV antibodies and HCV-RNA were present in the colostrum of HCV carrier mothers without HIV coinfection. Although the exact causes of this discrepancy remain unclear, it might be explained by the difference in primer pairs used3 or by the higher HCV-cDNA concentrations (104 to 108 copies/ml) in our carrier mothers.2

Concerning the amount of virus in both

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From the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pediatrics, Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine and Hepatitis Research Center, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, Rebublic of China

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Supported by the National Science Council (NSC82-0419-B-002-394-MC), Executive Yuan, Republic of China.

Reprint requests: Ding-Shinn Chen, MD, Hepatitis Research Center, National Taiwan University Hospital, No. 7, Chung-Shan South Road, Taipei, Taiwan 100, Republic of China.

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