ijerph-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Recent Advances in Hepatitis E

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Infectious Disease Epidemiology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2019) | Viewed by 2868

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Área de Microbiología, Departamento de Farmacia, Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Cardenal Herrera-CEU, CEU Universities, Avenida Seminario s/n, 46113 Moncada, Spain
Interests: antibiotic resistance; drug development; drug repurposing; clinical microbiology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is a leading cause of acute viral hepatitis worldwide. HEV is responsible for more than 50% of acute viral hepatitis cases in endemic countries. Approximately 2 billion individuals live in hepatitis E-endemic areas and, therefore, are at risk of infection. According to WHO, HEV causes about 20.1 million infections and 70,000 deaths every year. In developing countries with poor sanitation, this disease is transmitted through contaminated water and is associated with large outbreaks, affecting hundreds or thousands of people. In developed countries, autochthonous cases of HEV have been increasingly recognized in the past several years, associated with the consumption of contaminated food, such as pork, wildlife meat, or shellfish. Furthermore, other effective sources of transmission have been documented, suggesting a possibly much wider distribution of the virus. Despite the fact that this infectious disease usually takes a subclinical course, several extrahepatic manifestations have been reported in recent years, suggesting that the clinical magnitude of HEV may be underestimated. This significant increase in the knowledge of the epidemiology, pathogenesis, and clinical impact has pinpointed HEV as an emerging global health problem.

This Special Issue in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is dedicated to the current knowledge of HEV and its future perspectives. We encourage the submission of original research papers and reviews on all aspects of HEV: life cycle, molecular epidemiology, diagnostic tools, transmission, pathogenesis, clinical impact, treatment, and prevention.

Prof. Dr. María Teresa Pérez-Gracia
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • hepatitis E virus
  • Hepatitis E
  • epidemiology
  • outbreaks
  • pathogenesis
  • diagnosis
  • treatment
  • prevention
  • vaccines

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

11 pages, 503 KiB  
Article
Rituximab-Containing Treatment Regimens May Imply a Long-Term Risk for Difficult-To-Treat Chronic Hepatitis E
by Marten Schulz, Paula Biedermann, Claus-Thomas Bock, Jörg Hofmann, Mira Choi, Frank Tacke, Leif Gunnar Hanitsch and Tobias Mueller
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(1), 341; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/ijerph17010341 - 3 Jan 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2549
Abstract
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is an emerging disease in industrialized countries which is usually characterized by a self-limited course. However, there is an increased risk of HEV persistence in immunocompromised risk populations, comprising patients following solid organ transplantation or hematological malignancies. Recently, [...] Read more.
Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection is an emerging disease in industrialized countries which is usually characterized by a self-limited course. However, there is an increased risk of HEV persistence in immunocompromised risk populations, comprising patients following solid organ transplantation or hematological malignancies. Recently, chronic HEV infection following rituximab-containing treatment regimens has been described. Here we report five patients with chronic hepatitis E after prior rituximab therapy for various indications. We determined the immunological characteristics of these patients and analyzed the development of ribavirin (RBV) treatment failure-associated mutations in the HEV genome. One patient became chronically HEV-infected 110 months after administration of rituximab (RTX). Immunological characterization revealed that all patients exhibited significant hypogammaglobulinemia and CD4+ T cell lymphopenia. One patient permanently cleared HEV following weight-based ribavirin treatment while three patients failed to reach a sustained virological response. In depth mutational analysis confirmed the presence of specific mutations associated with RBV treatment failure in these patients. Our cases indicate that rituximab-containing treatment regimens might imply a relevant risk for persistent HEV infection even years after the last rituximab application. Moreover, we provide further evidence to prior observations suggesting that chronically HEV infected patients following RTX-containing treatment regimens might be difficult to treat. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Hepatitis E)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop