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Serological and virological profile of chronic HBV infected women at reproductive age in Greece A two-year single center study.

Elefsiniotis IS, Glynou I, Brokalaki H, Magaziotou I, Pantazis KD, Fotiou A, Liosis G, Kada H, Saroglou G

Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Nursing, University of Athens, "Helena Venizelou" Hospital, Athens, Greece.

OBJECTIVE: Seroprevalence of HBsAg in 26,746 women at reproductive age in Greece and evaluation of HBeAg/anti-HBe serological status as well as serum HBV-DNA levels in a subgroup of HBsAg(+) women at labor. STUDY DESIGN: Serological markers were detected using enzyme immunoassays. Serum HBV-DNA was calculated using a sensitive quantitative PCR assay, with a lower limit of quantification of 200copies/ml. RESULTS: Overall, 1.53% of women were HBsAg(+) and the majority of them (64.96%) were Albanian. Among Albanian women the mean prevalence of HBsAg was 4.9%, 5.57% among Asian women, and 1.29% among women from Eastern European countries. The prevalence of HBsAg among African (0.29%) and Greek women (0.57%) was very low and significantly lower in comparison with the mean value of the studied population. Only 2.67% of HBsAg(+) women were HBeAg(+). Of a subgroup of women in labor with available serum samples 28.6% had undetectable levels of viremia (<200copies/ml) and 15.9% had extremely low levels of viral replication (<400copies/ml). Only 12.7% of pregnant women evaluated at labor exhibited extremely high serum HBV-DNA levels (>10,000,000copies/ml) whereas 42.8% of them exhibited HBV-DNA levels between 1500 and 40,000copies/ml. CONCLUSIONS: The overall prevalence of HBsAg is relatively low among women at reproductive age in Greece but is higher among specific ethnic populations (Asian, Albanian). The HBeAg(-)/antiHBe(+) serological status is a finding observed in the vast majority of HBsAg(+) women of our study population, and a significant percentage of them (approximately 44.5%) exhibit extremely low or even undetectable levels of viral replication at labor, suggesting possibly that only a proportion of HBsAg(+) women in Greece exhibit an extremely high risk of vertical transmission of the infection.

Published 4 June 2007 in Eur J Obstet Gynecol Reprod Biol, 132(2): 200-3.
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