International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases
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Int. J. Infect. Dis. · Dec 2015
Chronic hepatitis B in pregnant women: is hepatitis B surface antigen quantification useful for viral load prediction?
New cases of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection continue to occur worldwide. Most of these are due to mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), with maternal viraemia as the most important contributing factor. The hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) level, which correlates positively with viral load, has been used for treatment monitoring in chronic hepatitis B. This study evaluated the usefulness of quantitative HBsAg for viral load prediction in HBsAg-positive pregnant women. ⋯ HBsAg levels provide a good viral load predictor in HBeAg-positive but not HBeAg-negative pregnant women. The HBeAg-negative group had a frequent occurrence of BCP/PC variants, which may have contributed to the lack of correlation observed. Samples with a low HBsAg level, which is associated with a low risk of MTCT, do not require HBV DNA measurement.
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The objective of this study was to predict the diagnosis of bacteraemia as a function of the time at which the automated BacT/Alert system continuously detects microorganism growth. ⋯ Knowing the time to detection of microorganism growth can help to distinguish between true bacteraemia and bacterial contamination, thus allowing more timely clinical decisions to be made, before definitive microorganism identification.