Virological features of hepatitis C virus infection in patients with liver diseases in the inshore area of the Yangtze River

The prevalence, genotypes, coinfection and putative core gene sequence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) were investigated in the inshore area of the Yangtze River, where hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is thought to be very common. Most patients with liver diseases were infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV), but the incidence of anti-HCV was very low, being 3.4% in patients with acute hepatitis, and approximately 7% in those with chronic liver diseases. The rate of coinfection with HBV and HCV in patients with HCC was 4.5%, which was similar to that in Shanghai (5.6%), but lower than that in Yangzhou (31.2%), Beijing (26.8%) and Zhejiang (28.6%). Of 124 patients with non-A, non-B (NANB) liver disease, 15 (12.1%) were positive for anti-HCV. HCV genotype analysis in 41 HCV-RNA-positive patients with liver diseases showed that genotype II was dominant (85.4%), followed by genotype III (7.3%) and II+III (7.3%). No genotype I or IV was found. The genome sequences of the HCV putative core gene from two patients with chronic hepatitis were more closely similar to those of previous isolates from Japan and China, than to that of an American isolate. These results suggest that HCV infection is not an important etiological factor for liver diseases, and that the HCV isolates in China are from the same subgroup as those in Japan.