Serological profile and virological evaluation of hepatitis B and hepatitis C virus infection among HIV infected patients in Greece.

In this study we evaluate the prevalence of HBV and HCV infections and the HBV and/or HCV viral load as well as HCV genotype among 737 HIV-infected patients. 89/737 (12.1%) were HBsAg(+) and the majority of them (60.7%) were HBeAg(+), in contrast to general Greek population; anti-HBc seropositivity was detected in 48.1% of the study population. Serum HBV-DNA levels were 5.75 +/- 1.66 (-log 10 copies/ml) and HBeAg(+) coinfected patients had significantly higher levels than HBeAg(-) ones (7.40 +/- 0.64 vs 4.59 +/- 1.01, respectively, p < 0.001). 8.2% of HIV-infected patients were anti-HCV(+) and the majority of them (85.7%) had HCV-RNA levels more than 700.000 IU/I. The most common HCV-genotype was genotype-1 (12/28, 42.9%), representing a difficult-to-treat special population.