Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
See article on page 613
Despite the identification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) as an aetiological agent of blood borne non-A, non-B (NANB) hepatitis a decade ago, its role in fulminant NANB hepatitis is still uncertain.1 In the West, HCV is only infrequently associated with NANB fulminant hepatitis. Thus, in studies from the USA, positive serum HCV RNA was reported in none of 15 cases by Wright and colleagues2 and in only two (12%) of 17 cases by Liang et al.3 Similarly, none of the 23 and 30 NANB cases in the French and English series, respectively, was positive for HCV infection.4 ,5 In contrast, the prevalence of serological markers of HCV infection in NANB fulminant hepatitis is much higher in the Oriental countries. In an early study from Japan, Muto et al found that seven (58%) of 12 patients with NANB fulminant hepatitis were anti-HCV (anti-C100–3) positive6; findings which were later confirmed by Yangi et al who reported detectable serum HCV RNA in 43% (3/7) of cases of NANB fulminant hepatitis.7 In Taiwan—geographically close to Japan—HCV RNA was detected in 45–50% of patients with NANB fulminant hepatitis …