Abstract:
Hepatic cirrhosis is the commonest liver disease causing death in Accra, Ghana. The roles of hepa-titis B (HBV) and C (HCV) virus infections in cirrhosis have not been well documented in Ghana. A nested case-control study was carried out to de-termine this and the role of blood transfusion in transmission of the two viruses. A total of 70 pa-tients with cirrhosis diagnosed on combined clini-cal and ultrasonographic evidence and 280 con-trols with non-hepatic diseases were recruited for the study. HBsAg was detected in 30 out of the 70 cases, giving a prevalence rate of 42.9% compared to the rate of 7.5% (21 out of 280) among the con-trols. HBV infection was significantly associated with cirrhosis (χ2 = 75.622, P = 0.000, C.I. = 28.6 – 42.156.08; OR=8.07, 95% CI=4.62 – 15.20). The risk of developing cirrhosis is 8-fold increased in patients with HBV infections than those without. The sero-prevalence of antibodies to HCV of 7.1% (5 out of 70) among cases was higher compared to the 3.6% (10 out of 280) in controls but there was no statistically significant difference between the two rates (χ2 = 0.962, P = 0.327, C.I. = -1.42 – 5.70). Our results show that HBV infection and not HCV infection is a major risk factor for devel-oping liver cirrhosis in Accra. There was statisti-cally significant association between blood trans-fusion and HBV but not HCV infection.