Hepatitis C virus serotypes in haemodialysis patients in South-East Italy.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is highly prevalent in haemodialysis patients. To date, only a few studies involving a small number of subjects have characterized HCV-infected dialysis patients by serotyping. The spread of HCV serotypes in 114 HCV-positive dialysis patients from the same geographical area was evaluated by Murex HCV serotyping assay. Serotypes were detected in 102 subjects (89.5%), with type 1 being the most frequent (37.7%), followed by types 2 (19.3%), 4 (8.8%) and 3 (7.9%). Types 5 and 6 were the least prevalent (3.5%). Ten samples (8.8%) revealed mixed infections: type 1 was detectable in all and the co-infecting HCV types were types 2, 3 and 4 in 3, 4 and 3 cases, respectively. These results suggest that the serotyping assay as an alternative method of distinguishing the major types of HCV, also for particular risk groups and especially in laboratories that lack the specific expertise to perform genotyping methods. Age-related differences in patients with type 5 compared with those with types 3 and 6 may provide evidence of a more recent spread of these latter types.