الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 65 |  |  |
| | | from | 65 | | |
Abstract
Hepatitis B is a potential life threatening liver infection caused by HBV. About one third of the world’s population (equals 2 billion people) showed a current or past HBV infection. There are about 257 million chronic HBV infections worldwide. Every year up to 700,000 of HBV carriers die due to complications including liver cirrhosis and HCC.
The predominant ways of HBV infection is parenteral or percutaneous. Globally, perinatal HBV transmission accounts for an estimated 21% of HBV-related deaths. 70-90% is the risk of transmitting infection, without immunoprophylaxis, from positively tested mothers for both HBs antigen and HBe antigen to their neonates. This risk drops to 11-40% if mothers test positive only for HBs antigen, Infants born to mothers known to carry HBV when treated with HB immunoglobulin together with the vaccine within 12-24 hours of birth, the risk of acquiring HBV is reduced by 90%.
The aim of the study is to screen hepatitis B infection among pregnant women by detecting HBsAg among them and testing those who are positive for HBsAg for the presence of HBeAg.
The current study was carried out on 354 pregnant women attending a governmental hospital and El Shatby Gynecology and Obstetrics Hospital, Alexandria University for antenatal care. An informed consent was obtained from the pregnant women followed by withdrawing of blood for the required investigations. A questionnaire sheet was completed for each woman. They were screened for the following markers by ELISA technique: HBsAg andHBeAg.
The main results of the study are:
1. The age of 354 pregnant women ranged from 16 to 47 years and from 19 to 39 years in HBsAg negative and positive women, respectively. Their mean age was nearly similar in both groups (27.62 and 28.33 years) in HBsAg negative and positive groups, respectively.
2. Among the 354 pregnant women, 140 (39.55%) were from urban areas while 214 (60.45%) were residents of rural areas. Out of the 12 HBsAg positive pregnant women, 3 (25.00%) were from urban areas while 9 (75.00%) were from rural areas.
3. The gestational age of the 354 studied pregnant women ranged from 4 to 40 weeks. Among those negative for HBsAg, mean gestational age was 32– 62±8.044 weeks while in these positive for HBsAg it was 33.75±7.735 weeks.
4. Among the 354 studied pregnant women, 28 (7.91%) had a history of receiving blood transfusion. Out of the 12 HBsAg positive pregnant women only one (8.33%) gave a history of receiving blood transfusion.
5. A group of 169 (47.8%) pregnant women didn’t have history of previous operations while 185 (52.26%) had previous operations. Among the 12 positive HBsAg, about two thirds (66.67%) had a history of previous operations.
6. Among the 185 pregnant women who had previous operations, obstetrics and gynecology, gastrointestinal, and dental were the most frequent operations within the studied group with a percent of 37.01, 18.08 and 12.15, respectively.
7. Within the 12 HBsAg positive women, only one of them (8.33%) had history of contact with a case of viral hepatitis (her hasband).
from this study it was concluded that:
1. The prevalence of HBV infection among pregnant women in Alexandria is intermediate (3.39%) with negative HBeAg.
2. There was no statistical significance between HBsAg infection and age, gestational age, history of blood transfusion, previous operation or contact with viral hepatitis infected patients.