Arif Hussain, Muhammad Israr Nasir, Afzal Ahmed Siddiqui, Aqeel Ahmad.
Prevalence of HCV genotypes in patients reporting in tertiary health care hospital of Karachi.
Pak J Pharmacol Jan ;28(2):23-9.

The present study was designed to see the variables which may affect the conventional treatment outcome by injection interferon in chronic hepatitis “C” patients. Among these variables hepatitis “C” genotype is most important, as it influences the duration and dosage of anti-viral therapy. To determine the frequency distribution of HCV genotypes, a study was conducted in a tertiary care centre of Karachi, the largest metropolitan city of Pakistan, where people of all ethnic origins are found. All the HCV positive patients, including inpatient admitted in hospital and outpatients, more than 18 years of age, reported for genotyping of HCV in the clinical laboratory of Dr. Ziauddin Hospital from May 2009 to April 2010 were studied. HCV genotyping was performed on a total of 457 patients who tested positive for presence of Hepatitis “C” viral RNA. The most prevalent genotype was type 3 with 392 (85.8%) cases, followed by type 1 with 51 (11.2%) cases. There were only two cases with a co=infection of type 1 & 3, while genotype 2, 4 and 5 were also seen in a few cases. Among the cases studied, there were higher proportion of females 276 (60.4%), dominating the HCV infected population. The present study revealed that genotype 3 was the most common genotype in patients with HCV infection in Karachi. Other genotypes were also present in the patients infected with HCV, but were of lesser frequency. To prevent the treatment failure it is advisable that before commencement of therapy, the genotype of the patient should be established so that appropriate treatment in correct dosage for optimal duration of time could be instituted.

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