Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Hepatitis

Hepatitis E and decompensated chronic liver disease

  • News & Views
  • Published:

From Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology

View current issue Sign up to alerts

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is the most common cause of hepatitis worldwide. In the developing world, HEV infection is also a common cause of decompensation in patients with chronic liver disease and has a very high mortality. Could the same be true in the UK? A recent paper examines this issue.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Figure 1: Univariate regression analysis of the mean mortality from chronic liver disease for the years 1990, 1995, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000, compared with the mean annual pork consumption in 18 developed countries.7

References

  1. Kumar Acharya, S. et al. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection in patients with cirrhosis is associated with rapid decompensation and death. J. Hepatol. 46, 387–394 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Kamar, N. et al. Hepatitis E. Lancet http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)61849-7.

  3. Mansuy, J. M. et al. Hepatitis E virus antibodies in blood donors, France. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 17, 2309–2312 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. De Silva, S., Hassan-Ibrahim, M. O., Austin, M., Newport, M. & Verma, S. Hepatitis E infection is an under recognized cause of acute decompensation in patients with chronic liver disease. Dig. Liver Dis. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dld.2012.04.011.

  5. Feagins, A. R., Opriessnig, T., Guenette, D. K., Halbur, P. G. & Meng, X. J. Inactivation of infectious hepatitis E virus present in commercial pig livers sold in local grocery stores in the United States. Int. J. Food Microbiol. 123, 32–37 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Colson, P. et al. Pig liver sausage as a source of hepatitis E virus transmission to humans. J. Infect. Dis. 202, 825–834 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Dalton, H. R., Bendall, R. P., Pritchard, C., Henley, W. & Melzer, D. National mortality rates from chronic liver disease and consumption of alcohol and pig meat. Epidemiol. Infect. 138, 174–182 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Dalton, H. R., Hazeldine, S., Banks, M., Ijaz, S. & Bendall, R. Locally acquired hepatitis E in chronic liver disease. Lancet 369, 1260 (2007).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Péron, J. M. et al. Fulminant liver failure from acute autochthonous hepatitis E in France: description of seven patients with acute hepatitis E and encephalopathy. J. Viral Hepat. 14, 298–303 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Péron, J. M., Dalton, H., Izopet, J. & Kamar, N. Acute autochthonous hepatitis E in western patients with underlying chronic liver disease: a role for ribavirin? J. Hepatol. 54, 1323–1324 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

H. R. Dalton has received travel, accommodation and consultancy fees from GlaxoSmithKline and Wantai.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Dalton, H. Hepatitis E and decompensated chronic liver disease. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 9, 430–432 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2012.121

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2012.121

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Navigation