HLA-A*33 was closely related with susceptibility to persisting hepatitis B infection, and HLA-DRB1*13 was closely related with protection against persisting hepatitis B in an Iranian population. These findings emphasized that the host HLA polymorphism is an important factor in determining the outcome of HBV infection.

Although the natural occurrence of YMDD motif mutants in lamivudine-untreated patients with chronic hepatitis B has been reported, these mutants were not detected in Iranian lamivudine-untreated chronic hepatitis B patients.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is 1 of the possible aetiological factors in the development of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). We aimed to study the role of HPV in ESCC. 140 cases of ESCC were analysed for the HPV DNA by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using GP5+/GP6+ primers for L1 open reading frame (ORF) to amplify a 150 bp segment of HPV L1 ORF. This region was subsequently sequenced to identify the type of HPV. Of the 140 patients enrolled to our study 50.7% were female and 49.3% were male, aged between 20 and 81 y. 33 tumour specimens (23.6%) and 12 (8.6%) non-involved tumour margins were HPV positive. From HPV positive tumour cases 36% were positive in tumour margins. The HPV positive cases were 21.7% male and 25.3% female. There is no correlation between presence and types of HPV with patients' gender and age. The frequency of HPV subtypes in tumoural regions was as follows: HPV-16, 60.6%; HPV-18, 30.3%; HPV-33, 6.1%; and HPV-31, 3%. We found only HPV-16 in tumour margins. Our results are consistent with HPV studies conducted in other high-risk areas for ESCC and provided further evidence to support a causal association of HPV infection with ESCC.

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e41813th International Congress on Infectious Diseases Abstracts, Poster Presentations examined the association between the immune status and the psychological (perceived) stress in patients with chronic hepatitis B, and the involvement of cortisol.Methods: Forty patients with chronic hepatitis B completed the Perceived Stress Scale-14 (PSS-14) and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-Form). These two scales are selfreport questionnaires to measure psychological stress, state anxiety and trait anxiety. We measured two types of T cellderived cytokines level (IL-10 and IFN) and plasma cortisol. Correlation analysis was employed to explore the relationship among psychological scores, cortisol and cytokine level.Results: Our results show that the level of IL-10 was related to psychological stress (P = 0.03), state anxiety (P = 0.01) and trait anxiety (P = 0.03). No correlations were found between psychological stress and IFN-␥ levels. Also no correlations were developed between cortisol and psychological stress, anxiety, IL-10, and IFN-␥.Conclusion: From the results, it can be concluded that psychological stress depresses the immune reaction in patients with chronic hepatitis B, which is disadvantage of HBV r esolve. Those patients were in great need of psychological support. Cortisorl plays little role between psychological stress and immune state in patient with hepatitis B.