Detection and significance of anti-HBc in the blood bank; preliminary results of a controlled prospective study

Is the Use of the Term ‘Posttransfusion Hepatitis Type B’ in Its Conventional Sense Still Justifiable?

“…So far, it does not seem possible to say whether the situa tion is similar in Europe, where the system is based on donor groups consisting of re peatedly donating persons under continuous screening including ALT testing in most European countries, with a consequently low risk of transmission of hepatitis [27]: in a retrospective investigation of all donors who had been implicated in altogether 12 cases of PTH B in West Germany, Fiedler [12] found only 1 donor positive for anti-HBc. In con trast to this are the results of a prospective controlled study done by Katchaki et al [22] for anti-HBc IgM and HBeAg as well as bor derline positive test for anti-HBs do not per mit any conclusion with regard to persisting virus replication respectively high infectivity [11,35], Nevertheless, the donor had already been implicated into a case of clini cally manifest hepatitis type B years ago, and furthermore, still another recipient of his blood showed a massive booster reaction in anti-HBs. In this last case, that is well docu mented, a passive administration of antiHBs or transfusion of HBsAg-positive re spectively infectious material through other donors or blood derivatives can definitely be excluded.…”

Italian blood donors with anti-HBc and occult hepatitis B virus infection

“…[26][27][28][29] A number of other studies showed cases of HBV transmission after the transfusion of anti-HBc-positive blood. [13][14][15][16] A recent study showed that up to 16% of anti-HBc/antiHBs-positive donors have circulating HBV-DNA unbound to anti-HBs in their sera and thus in a potentially infective form.…”

Anti-HBc and HBV-DNA detection in blood donors negative for hepatitis B virus surface antigen

“…However, the prevalence of HBV is very low in Northern Europe and the number of units traced was relatively small, while the transfusion risk may be different in areas such as Italy, where HBV remains endemic. In four large studies of post-transfusion hepatitis performed in the 1970s in the United States, Australia and The Netherlands, the overall rate of HBV infection after receipt of blood tested for HBsAg only varied from 1% to 2.5%; however in all se-ries, hepatitis B was more frequent after transfusion with anti-HBcpositive than with anti-HBc-negative blood, with the rate of transmission varying between 2% and 8.6% among recipients of anti-HBc-positive blood [31,[33][34][35]. A number of other studies showed cases of HBV transmission after the transfusion of anti-HBc-positive blood [36,37].…”