clinical characteristics of chronic hepatitis b virus infection in immigrants from sub-saharan africa

Chronic hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection is a significant, worldwide burden due to it’s high prevalence, and risk of complications, including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc). current literature suggests that african patients with chronic hepatitis b are at higher risk for hepatocellular carcinoma. the exact mechanism for the explanation for this observation is contentious and may be due to higher rates of chronicity, and/or exposure to hepatotoxins including aflatoxin. we sought to report the clinical characteristics of african born immigrants with chronic hepatitis b referred to a liver clinic in new york city. a total of 111 patients were enrolled. 19 patients (17%) had cirrhosis, and 14 patients (13%) had hcc at initial presentation. during the course of follow up, 13 patients (12%) died of complications of hbv, all of them related to hcc. our case series revealed that a significant proportion of these patients manifested advanced complications of hbv such as cirrhosis or hcc.