Surveillance of hepatitis C virus infection in chronic renal dialysis patients.

The prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among the Patients of 22 renal dialysis units in Wakayama Prefecture; part of Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture; and Kasai City, Hyogo Prefecture was examined by three kinds of second generation HCV antibody detection kits (Particle agglutination, PA, Ortho; Passive hemagglutination, PHA, Dainabot; Enzyme immunoassay, UBI, Kyokuto). A total of 1, 170 patients received hemodialysis (HD) and 23 received continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD).Anti-HCV was detected in 360 (30.2%) of the 1, 193 dialysis patients, with good agreement seen among the three different methods. Anti-HCV positive rate of HD patients (30.3%) was higher than that of the CAPD patients (21.7%).The frequency of HCV infection correlated with the duration of dialysis treatment, HD treatment and the amount of blood transfusion. Transfusion history of anti-HCV positive patients was 37.0% of HD and 36.4% of CAPD patients. CAPD patients without blood transfusion, however, had a higher anti-HCV rate (8.3%) than the general Japanese HCV career rate (1.2%).These results suggest that HCV transmission may occur in any renal dialysis unit.