Frequency of Hepatitis-B and C in patients undergoing cataract surgery in a tertiary care Centre

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the frequency of hepatitis B and C in patients undergoing cataract surgery.

Methods: This descriptive study was conducted at department of Ophthalmology Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre. The duration of study was seven months from May 2013 to November 2013. After taking informed consent from the patient and hospital ethical committee all patients presenting with cataract and undergoing cataract surgery were evaluated for the existence of hepatitis C and B. Diagnosis of hepatitis C or B was made on the criteria that a patient must be positive for either Anti-HCV or HBsAg or both. Proformas were filled and data was collected and analysis was done. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated to calculate the occurrence of hepatitis C and B in general population undergoing cataract surgery.

Results: Six hundred and forty-eight patients were operated on for cataract surgery at Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre during the study period. Mean age of patients was 63 years, 300 (46.29%) were male and 348 (53.70%) female. Out of them 57 (8.79%) patients were carriers of either Hepatitis C or B. Hepatitis B accounted for 17 cases (2.62%) however Hepatitis C positive were 40 cases (6.17%). Nobody was simultaneously affected by both hepatitis C and B.

Conclusion: Significant number of asymptomatic carriers of hepatitis C and B were found in preoperative cataract patients. It is recommended that preoperative screening of all cataract patients should be done so that asymptomatic carriers might not become a threat for spread of disease.

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.314.6771

How to cite this:Tahir MA, Cheema A, Tareen S. Frequency of Hepatitis-B and C in patients undergoing cataract surgery in a tertiary care Centre . Pak J Med Sci 2015;31(4):895-898.   doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12669/pjms.314.6771

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.