Background/aims: Although hepatitis C virus is clearly the major cause of non-A, non-B acute and chronic hepatitis, there is a group of patients with histologically documented chronic hepatitis with no serological marker of hepatitis B and C, nor any other risk factors for liver disease.
Methods: We have investigated 17 well-characterized patients with chronic active hepatitis. HBV-DNA and HCV-RNA were tested by polymerase chain reaction in 17 serum samples and in six liver biopsies.
Results: Four of the 17 patients had serum HCV-RNA detectable by polymerase chain reaction, while none had HBV-DNA detectable by polymerase chain reaction. Three of the six liver samples gave a positive signal by cyclin A and HLA, and only these were considered for the study. One of the three was HCV-RNA positive, while none was HBV-DNA positive.
Conclusions: Our results, obtained through careful elimination of all known risk factors for liver disease, strongly suggest that non-A, non-B, non-C hepatotropic virus(es) could be involved in some cases of chronic active liver disease.