Correlation Study Between HCV Genotypes Distribution Pattern and Viral Load in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Kolkata, India.

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C virus infection is a leading cause for chronic liver disease. It has wide population specific genotype variability. Genotype knowledge and viral load assessment are equally important for designing therapeutic strategies and as predictors of treatment outcome among hepatitis C (HCV) infected patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between June 2012 and 2013 an observational study was conducted among 350 chronic hepatitis patients visiting Calcutta National Medical College, Kolkata, India. Among them, 110 anti-HCV antibody positive cases were diagnosed and subjected to viral RNA extraction, viral genotyping and viral load quantification using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based techniques. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Statistical analysis was done with IBM SPSS Statistics software, version 20. p-value <0.05 was regarded as statically significant. RESULTS: Among 66 HCV RNA positive cases, genotypes 1a, 3a and 3b were observed among 18 (27%), 44(67%) and 4(6%) cases respectively. Genotype 3a had higher viral load than patients infected with genotypes 1and 3b. However, no statistical significance was observed for viral load among the various HCV RNA genotypes. CONCLUSION: Genotype 3a accounted for the highest number of cases with positive HCV RNA. However, no statistically significant difference existed for viral load among the various HCV RNA genotypes in this study.