Hepatitis E Virus Infection Epidemiology in Recipients of Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplant

Johan Courjon; Vera Portillo; Sabine Yerly; Pauline Vetter; Manuel Schibler; Maria Mappoura; Sarah Morin; Federica Giannotti; Anne-Claire Mamez; Christian van Delden; Laurent Kaiser; Yves Chalandon; Stavroula Masouridi-Levrat; Dionysios Neofytos

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofad595

Hepatitis E Virus Infection Epidemiology in Recipients of Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplant

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2023 Nov 24;10(12):ofad595. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofad595. eCollection 2023 Dec.

Authors

Johan Courjon^{1

2}, Vera Portillo¹, Sabine Yerly³, Pauline Vetter^{1

3

4}, Manuel Schibler^{1

3}, Maria Mappoura⁵, Sarah Morin⁵, Federica Giannotti⁴, Anne-Claire Mamez⁵, Christian van Delden¹, Laurent Kaiser¹, Yves Chalandon⁵, Stavroula Masouridi-Levrat⁵, Dionysios Neofytos¹

Affiliations

¹ Division of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
² Université Côte d'Azur, Inserm, C3M, Nice, France.
³ Laboratory of Virology, Division of Laboratory Medicine, University Hospital of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
⁴ Geneva Center for Emerging Viral Diseases, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland.
⁵ Division of Hematology, Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, University Hospital of Geneva and Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.

Abstract

Among 292 recipients of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant (2018-2022), 64 (21.9%) tested positive for anti-hepatitis E virus (HEV) immunoglobulin G. Among 208 recipients tested by plasma/serum HEV polymerase chain reaction (2012-2022), 3 (1.4%) primary HEV infections were diagnosed; in 1 patient, plasma HEV polymerase chain reaction relapsed positive for 100 days. HEV infection remains rare albeit associated with persistent viral replication.

Keywords: acute hepatitis E; allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation; hepatitis E virus; immunosuppression; seroprevalance.