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Hepatitis B infection is a major global health problem. Vertical transmission is the commonest route of spreading hepatitis B virus (HBV) in many endemic areas. In order to control such transmission in Hong Kong, neonatal immunization programme was implemented for more than two decades. A declining prevalence of HBV infection was expected. However, the prevalence remained unabated at around 10% in recent studies. We suspect that one of the explanations of this persistent high prevalence is deficient knowledge on infection with the HBV and its prevention. Our paper gives an overview of the knowledge on HBV infection among Chinese population in both high and low endemic areas and discusses the potential factors that influenced the knowledge on as well as the implication of the sources of information for HBV infection, which was not addressed in previous studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is highly endemic in many Asian countries. Objectives: We examined whether prior contraceptive methods and sexual behavioral factors impact maternal HBV carriage in an obstetric population. Patients and Methods: For this study, pregnant women were considered to be representative of the sexually active and fertile female population. Contraceptive methods used prior to the index pregnancy were examined in 1283 pregnant Chinese women attending an antenatal clinic using a self-administered questionnaire, and correlated with the maternal HBV status determined using routine antenatal screening. Results: In our study, 111 (8.7%) women were infected with HBV and there was no difference in the incidence of male condom usage between HBV-positive (88.3%) and HBV-negative (83.5%) women. No contraceptive method was associated with a reduced incidence of maternal HBV carriage, except for coitus interruptus. In multivariate analysis, only multiparity (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.62) and more than 1 sexual partner (aOR, 1.57) were independent factors associated with maternal HBV carriage. Conclusions: Contraceptive use played only a minimal role in preventing sexual transmission of HBV infection within the sexually active female population in an endemic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RNA transcripts circulating in peripheral blood represent an important source of non-invasive biomarkers. To accurately quantify the levels of circulating transcripts, one needs to normalize the data with internal control reference genes, which are detected at relatively constant levels across blood samples. A few reference gene candidates have to be selected from transcriptome data before the validation of their stable expression by reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction. However, there is a lack of transcriptome, let alone whole-transcriptome, data from maternal blood. To overcome this shortfall, we performed RNA-sequencing on blood samples from women presenting with preterm labor. The coefficient of variation (CV) of expression levels was calculated. Of 11,215 exons detected in the maternal blood whole-transcriptome, a panel of 395 genes, including PPP1R15B, EXOC8, ACTB, and TPT1, were identified to comprise exons with considerably less variable expression level (CV, 7.75-17.7%) than any GAPDH exon (minimum CV, 27.3%). Upon validation, the selected genes from this panel remained more stably expressed than GAPDH in maternal blood. This panel is over-represented with genes involved with the actin cytoskeleton, macromolecular complex, and integrin signaling. This groundwork provides a starting point for systematically selecting reference gene candidates for normalizing the levels of circulating RNA transcripts in maternal blood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]