Investigation of antiviral resistance and escape mutations in children with naive chronic hepatitis B patients and their parents

Özet

In this study, it was aimed to scan the resistance to nucleoside analogs innaive pediatric patients with chronic hepatitis B treatment and their parentsand the rate of accompanying possible escape mutations. A total of 34children who did not receive any treatment regarding chronic hepatitis B and19 parents who caused vertical transmission or acquired transmission fromfather were involved in the study. Serological tests concerning hepatitis Bvirus and transaminases in conjunction with viral load were studied. HBVgenotypes, subgenotypes were determined by surface gene sequencings. Thegene mutations coding polymerase (pol) for resistance against nucleosideanalogs and escape mutations in the genes coding surface (S) proteins wereanalyzed with PCR method. All cases were genotype D. Only one pediatricpatient was D2; the rest of all pediatric patients and their parents weregenotype D1. Resistance was not identified against nucleoside analogs inany children or their parents. HBsAg escape mutations determined in thechronic hepatitis B patients were 18.8% (10 case). It can be speculated withthis results that the resistance may not be considered as a problem in thepreference of nucleoside analogs in treatment of naive children. Nevertheless,escape mutations were seen as high in both children and parents as well. Sinceit interests public health on a large scale, advanced studies and evaluation ofvaccination escape mutations’ rate in broad case series and their follow upare of great importance in the determination of health policies with regardto hepatitis B infection control.