Changing epidemiologic pattern of chronic hepatitis C virus infection in Italian children☆,☆☆,★
Section snippets
Patients
Between January 1991 and March 1997, 106 children (aged 9 months to 16 years) with chronic HCV infection were observed in 3 pediatric centers: the Pediatric Clinic in Florence (32 consecutive cases), the Department of Infectious Diseases Gaslini in Genoa (35 consecutive cases), and the Departments of Pediatrics and of Infectious Diseases of Padua Hospital (39 consecutive cases). None of these institutions was a referral center for selected liver diseases, and none had changed the referral
Results
At the time of enrollment, 15 children had a history of non-A, non-B hepatitis and had been followed up for 1 to 7 years, whereas 91 had only a 6-month history of anti-HCV positivity; 101 had alanine aminotransferase abnormalities, and 5 had persistently normal ALT levels (Table I). Thirty children were born after 1990.
Fifty-four percent of older children had received blood transfusions, administered in the perinatal period or early in life in 69% of cases. Conversely, none of the children born
Discussion
HCV infection is often asymptomatic in children, but in most cases fluctuating or intermittent ALT abnormalities can be found.14, 15 In the last few years screening for previous transfusions, for maternal infection during and after pregnancy, and for adoption have become powerful tools with which to identify children with chronic HCV.
Although we have not introduced a control group of patients matched for age and sex, the high prevalence of blood transfusions and of maternal infection in our
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Infection
Cited by (73)
Acute and Chronic Hepatitis
2020, Pediatric Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease, Sixth EditionViral Infections of the Fetus and Newborn
2018, Avery's Diseases of the Newborn: Tenth EditionViral Hepatitis in Children
2017, Zakim and Boyer's Hepatology: A Textbook of Liver DiseaseViral Infections of the Fetus and Newborn
2017, Avery's Diseases of the Newborn, Tenth EditionViral Hepatitis in Children
2012, Zakim and Boyer's HepatologyViral infections of the fetus and newborn and human immunodeficiency virus infection during pregnancy
2011, Avery's Diseases of the Newborn
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From Clinica Medica 5, University of Padua, Italy; Department of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy; Department of Infectious Diseases, Gaslini Institute, Genoa, Italy; Department of Infectious Diseases of Padua Hospital, Padua, Italy; and Department of Pediatrics, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
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Reprint requests: Flavia Bortolotti, MD, Clinica Medica 5, Dip. di Medicina Clinica e Sperimentale, Via Giustiniani 2, 35100 Padova, Italy.
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0022-3476/98/$5.00 + 0 9/21/92042