Nine Cases of Sporadic Acute Hepatitis E in Korea

Korean J Hepatol > Volume 12(2); 2006 > Article

The Korean Journal of Hepatology 2006;12(2): 230-236.

Nine Cases of Sporadic Acute Hepatitis E in Korea

Jeong Woo Lim , Chan Sun Park , Jung Min Ahn , Mi Hyun Yu , Taeg Soo Kim , Young Suk Lim , Seok Won Chung , Gang Mo Kim , Young Hwa Chung , Yung Sang Lee , Dong Jin Suh

Department of Internal Medicine, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea

ABSTRACT

Hepatitis E virus is an enterically transmitted virus that causes endemic cases of acute hepatitis in many countries in Africa, and Southeast and Central Asia. Sporadic cases of acute hepatitis E also have been reported in developed countries. In non-endemic areas, most of the sporadic cases of hepatitis E are introduced from the endemic areas. Until now, only three cases of acute hepatitis E have been reported in Korea. Recently, we experienced nine cases of acute hepatitis, in which serologic studies showed positive of IgM anti-HEV. We report these as cases of acute hepatitis E. These cases suggest that HEV infection occurs sporadically in Korea and should be considered as a cause of cryptogenic acute hepatitis. (Korean J Hepatol 2006;12:230-236)

KeyWords: Hepatitis E; Hepatitis E virus; anti-HEV; Korea