Abid Mahmood, Karamat Ahmed Karamat, Azhar Mubarik, Zahur Ur Rehman.
Prevalence of Hepatitis C virus antibodies in cases of Chronic Hepatitis and Cirrhosis at PNS Shifa, Karachi.
Pak Armed Forces Med J Jan ;49(1):15-7.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is now established to be one of the major causes of chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis world wide. The population in Pakistan is having the problem at larger scale as compared to the western world. We conducted this study to know the prevalence of Hepatitis C virus antibodies (Anti-HCV antibodies) in cases of chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis at our hospital. A total of 202 cases having clinical/biochemical presentation of chronic hepatitis/cirrhosis were included in the study. Out of these 65.8% (n = 133) were the cases of chronic hepatitis (CH) and the rest 34.2% (n=69) were having cirrhosis. Anti-HCV antibodies were detected by using third generation micro particle enzyme immunoassay (MEIA - Abbott Laboratories). Prevalence of anti-HCV was found to be 45.7% in case of CH and 37.7% in cirrhosis cases. Overall 43.06% cases were found having anti-HCV antibodies. The results indicate quite a high prevalence of anti-HCV antibodies in cases of chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis

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