Hepatitis C infection among dialysis patients: a comparison between patients on maintenance haemodialysis and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis.

Three hundred and thirty-nine dialysis patients from two centres (278 patients on continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) and 61 on maintenance haemodialysis (HD) were tested for antibody against hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) using first-generation enzyme immunoassay kits (Ortho Diagnostics). Anti-HCV was detected in five (1.8%) CAPD patients and ten (16.4%) HD patients (P less than 0.00001). Anti-HCV was confirmed to be positive in three (1.1%) CAPD patients and eight (13.2%) HD patients using neutralisation enzyme immunoassay kits (Abbott Laboratories). The marked difference in prevalence of anti-HCV among CAPD and HD patients was related to a significantly greater transfusion requirement of the HD patients. All the anti-HCV positive patients had been transfused. The risk of HCV infection was significantly increased in those who had received more than five units of blood. Four (26.7%) anti-HCV positive patients had one or more episodes of elevated serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) values.