Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in haemodialysis patients. The Multicentre Haemodialysis Cohort Study on Viral Hepatitis.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection among patients undergoing haemodialysis (HD) and to evaluate whether chronic haemodialysis is associated with an increased risk of HEV infection. METHODS: Serum samples from 420 HD patients and 316 healthy volunteers were tested for IgG and IgM antibodies to HEV (anti-HEV). Anti-HEV IgG positive sera were confirmed using synthetic peptides. RESULTS: Anti-HEV IgG was confirmed in 27/420 (6.4%) of the HD patients and in 7/316 (2. 2%) of the reference group (P=0.07). However, multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the prevalence of anti-HEV IgG was not significantly higher in HD patients compared with the reference group, after controlling for age and sex. No patient was found positive for anti-HEV IgM. The presence of anti-HEV was associated with sex in HD patients (P=0.04). No significant association was found between anti-HEV and underlying renal disease, anti-HCV, anti-HBc, blood transfusions, history of elevated transaminases, history of clinical hepatitis and renal transplantation. A marginal association, which was observed with the duration of haemodialysis in univariate analysis (P=0.07), was not confirmed in multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Chronic haemodialysis is not associated with an increased risk of exposure to HEV, and the high prevalence of anti-HEV IgG in HD patients reported in uncontrolled studies is possibly due to the confounding effect of age and sex.