Investigation of Hepatitis B Virus DNA in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients Khartoum – Sudan

Abstract

Hepatitis B infection is an alarming public health problem .Almost two billion people from the population alive today, were infected at some time in their lives by hepatitis B virus.It has been reported to be associated with liver diseases as well as various types of extrahepatic manifestations. Furthermore the association with other inflammatory syndromes as rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica and polymyositis.This is a descriptive cross sectional study conducted to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection related to rheumatoid arthritis at Alrayan , Military hospital and Alya military hospital, Khartoum – Sudan using PCR .The study was carried out from march 2018 to march 2019. Participants comprised 120 randomly selected (40 controls, 40 known rheumatoid cases and 40 suspected with rheumatoid arthritis). Samples were collected in plain containers then centrifuged then the clear serum was separated and stored at 4 C⁰ until used, after that DNA was extracted by chloroform method and processed by conventional PCR using the following primers forward (5' – CCC TTG CGG ATG CCAAT -3' ) and reverse primer (5' – GGC TGA TAT GGA TGC CC - 3'). Out of 120 patients 34 (28 %) was positive for HBV DNA , 22(18.3%)were males, 98(81.7%)were females .Throughout the males population (22) only 6 samples was positive and 28 out of the females population (98) were positive .HBV DNA observed in 3 (2.5%) samples out of 40 cases and 31 (25.8%)samples from 40 suspected which was statistically significant, relying on the results hepatitis B virus its related to rheumatoid arthritis and arthritis symptoms pressed the onset of jaundice .