Hepatitis C virus infection is a risk factor for liver failure from veno-occlusive disease after bone marrow transplantation

Abstract

The contribution of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection to liver disease after bone marrow transplantation (BMT) was retrospectively evaluated in 61 patients treated with BMT. HCV genome, as well as antibodies to HCV, was analyzed in sera collected before and serially after BMT. Six patients had been infected with HCV before BMT and three patients acquired the infection during or shortly after BMT. All patients infected before BMT died within 10 weeks after transplantation. Five of these six patients (83%) died of veno-occlusive disease (VOD), compared with nine of 52 patients (17%) not infected with HCV (P