RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: The main objectives of this study are to investigate the prevalence of HCV among patients with ß-thalassemia major and to determine the most prevalent genotype for this virus among them. METHODS: One hundred twenty-two ß-thalassemia major patients who were previously diagnosed at the molecular level were included. All plasma samples were tested for the presence of antibodies by ELISA. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used in the quantitation the HCV RNA viral loads, and consequently, patients with high virus titer were genotyped by the linear array. RESULTS: Forty of the patients were anti-HCV positive. The prevalence of anti-HCV was significantly higher in patients who received blood transfusion before 1993 (83.7%) than in those who received it after 1993 (16.3%) (p=0.000). ß-thalassemia major patients with HCV infection had significantly higher rates of elevated aspartate aminotransferase (54.4% vs 40.5%, p=0.045) and alanine aminotransferase (72.47% vs 37.47%, p=0.00) and of splenectomy (54.8% vs 45.2%, p=0.004) than ß-thalassemia major patients without HCV. CONCLUSION: HCV genotype 4 is the commonest genotype in multi-transfused patients with ß-thalassemia major in Jordan.