Investigation and analysis of hepatitis C virus infection in maintenance hemodialysis patients

OBJECTIVE To observe the status of hepatitis C virus(HCV) infection in the maintenance hemodialysis patients and to explore the related risk factors so as to reduce the incidence of hepatitis C virus infection.METHODS A total of 100 patients who underwent the maintenance hemodialysis from Jan 2010 to Dec 2011 were chosen as the study objects,the ELISA method was used to detect anti-HCV,the nested PCR was employed to detect HCV-RNA,then the correlation between the HCV infection and the blood transfusion,duration of dialysis,frequency of dialysis and the number of dialysis hospitals was analyzed.RESULTS There were 4 out of 100 patients with HCV infection,the infection rate was 4.0%,and the incidence of HCV infections was correspondingly increased when the frequency of blood transfusion and dialysis as well as the number of the dialysis hospitals increased(P0.05).CONCLUSION The maintenance hemodialysis patients are prone to the HCV infection,and the repeated blood transfusion,frequent dialysis,extended dialysis duration,and dialysis in many hospitals are the risk factors associated with the HCV infection.