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                        JeffNEWS, January 10, 1995
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Jefferson Faculty Find New Variants In Hepatitis Type B
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Writing in the journal, Hepatology, Jefferson virologists reported that
some cases of hepatitis infection resulting from blood transfusions are
associated with variants in the hepatitis B virus, and that these
variants aren't detectable in the patients studied, using current blood
screening tests.

Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver usually caused by a viral
infection.

The patients in the study were all children with a type of anemia called
beta-thalassemia. All had had many transfusions and many of them
developed hepatitis; although none of them had markers of hepatitis B
virus in their blood. The children were then vaccinated against
hepatitis B.

As usually happens, they developed protective antibodies against the
virus. The Jefferson scientists found, however, that before vaccination
many had evidence of the hepatitis B variants in their bloodstreams and
that many became or remained infected with hepatitis B variants despite
vaccination.

 "These results suggest that while current vaccines for hepatitis B are
highly effective against the common form of the virus, vaccination
doesn't appear to protect against infection from the variants," said
Mark A. Feitelson, PhD, associate professor of pathology and cell
biology, principal investigator.

"Our results also suggest that hepatitis B contributes to the
development of liver disease under these circumstances, where it
previously wouldn't have been expected to occur," Dr. Feitelson said.
Furthermore, he and his colleagues have found ways to detect specific
variants of hepatitis B in patients with unexplained hepatitis after
transfusion.

"The findings are important for diagnosis and treatment of post-
transfusion hepatitis," Dr. Feitelson said.

More than 250 million people worldwide are infected with hepatitis B
virus. For each known carrier, or person with the virus in his or her
bloodstream, there are several more who are infected but show few if any
markers for the virus in their blood.

"This suggests that there's a large reservoir of people who carry
variants of this hepatitis virus and implies that contaminated blood
transfusions may be the source of these infections," Dr. Feitelson said.

He believes that if many hepatitis B virus infections consist of
predominantly mutant virus strains, these strains may genetically
recombine during the course of infection, resulting in the spontaneous
appearance of the normal strain of virus.

"This is another reason that additional testing to detect such mutations
may be desirable," he said.


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