Exposure of hepatitis C virus-negative recipients to > or =2 infected blood donors.

Pubmed ID: 11170996

Journal: The Journal of infectious diseases

Publication Date: Feb. 15, 2001

Affiliation: Division of Transplantation Medicine, SC Johnson Bldg. Sj3, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, Scottsdale, AZ 85259, USA. laskus.tomasz@mayo.edu

MeSH Terms: Humans, Adult, RNA, Viral, Base Sequence, Middle Aged, Genotype, Blood Donors, Hepacivirus, Hepatitis C, Species Specificity, Molecular Sequence Data, Viral Nonstructural Proteins, Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction, Sequence Analysis, DNA, Transfusion Reaction

Authors: Laskus T, Wilkinson J, Radkowski M, Nowicki M, Rakela J, Wang LF

Cite As: Laskus T, Wang LF, Radkowski M, Nowicki M, Wilkinson J, Rakela J. Exposure of hepatitis C virus-negative recipients to > or =2 infected blood donors. J Infect Dis 2001 Feb 15;183(4):666-9. Epub 2001 Jan 12.

Studies:

Abstract

This study analyzed 4 cases of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-naive transfusion recipients who developed hepatitis after receiving blood from >1 HCV-infected donor. One recipient was exposed to 4 donors, 2 were exposed to 3 donors, and 1 was exposed to 2 donors. For 3 recipients, the strain from 1 of the donors predominated in all follow-up samples collected for 8-40 months. For 2 recipients, the strain from the second donor was occasionally detectable with sensitive strain-specific assays. For the fourth recipient, the initially dominant strain was later supplanted by a strain from the other donor. Simultaneous exposure to multiple HCV strains may result in concomitant infection by >1 strain, although a single strain rapidly establishes its dominance. These observations are compatible with the presence of competition among infecting HCV strains that results in the dominance of 1 strain and competitive exclusion or suppression of other strains.