determination of hepatitis b virus genotypes in yazd, central province of iran

Background and aims: hepatitis b virus (hbv) infects the liver and causes acute and chronic hepatitis, hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhosis. hbv has been divided to eight genotypes (a -h) and subgenotypes of a, b, c and f. for the first time, we determined hbv genotypes in infected samples by inno-lipa method in yazd, central province of iran. materials and methods: this study was performed on samples suspected of hbv infection. the sera of fifteen out of ninety-five samples that had shown positive results by rt-pcr were used for hbv genotyping by using inno-lipa hbv genotyping assay. results and conclusions: seven (46.7%) out of fifteen samples were female. the mean age of the patients was 37.8±14.3 years. the average number copy of hbv in infected samples was 1.04 ×10^6±4.74 ×10^5 copies/ml. all fifteen infected samples had genotype d. our results showed that hbv genotype d was the only detectable genotype in yazd, central province of iran. a further study with a larger sample size in different provinces of iran is needed to identify hbv genotypes in iran.