Epidemiological Study on Occupational Exposure to Hepatitis Virus and Variation in Serum Guanine Deaminase

Abstract

To study the occupational exposure to hepatitis virus in health care personnel, the occurrence of hepatitis B surface antigen and antibody was examined in 1020 hospital employees.
The personnel were divided into two groups comprising doctors, nurses, and technicians who were exposed to hepatitis virus (exposed group), and office workers and cooking and laundry workers who were not exposed to hepatitis virus (non-exposed group).
Activites of guanine deaminase, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in hepatitis B antigen-positive employees of the exposed group were compared with those in nonexposed employees who showed negative results for hepatitis B antigen and hepatitis B antibody.
ln the exposed group, the Odds ratio and attributable risk percent (ARP) were the highest among technicians.
The guanine deaminase and ALT activities were significantly higher in doctors and technicians, whereas AST activity was significantly higher only in technicians. The results suggest that guanine deaminase should be included among the enzymes tested in screening health care personnel for prevention of infection from hepatitis and for determination of the onset of hepatitis B.