Study of Hepatitis B Virus Vertical Transmission from Father to Infant

Objective:To investigate the possibility of vertical transmission of hepatitis B virus(HBV) from father to infant.Methods:Group A had 85 pregnant women with negative HBsAg, whose husbands had positive HBsAg detected by ELISA. Group B served as the comparative group which had 132 pregnant women with positive HBsAg whose husbands have negative HBsAg .The new-born infants were tested for HBsAg and HBV-DNA with ELISA and Fluorescence quantitative PCR (FQ-PCR). Results: There was no significant difference in the HBsAg and HBV-DNA positive rate in the new-born infants' serum.(χ2=1.23,P 0.05; χ2=0.56,P 0.05) between the two groups. In group A, the infants were more likely to have positive HBsAg and HBV-DNA if their father had positive HBsAg, HBeAg and HBcAb at the same time.(χ2=6.41,P0.05). In group A, the general rate of positive HBV-DNA was higher than that of HBsAg.(χ2=5.83,P 0.05).Conclusions: Fathers carrying HBV can transmit the virus to newborn infants, causing intrauterine fetal infection. Fathers with positive HBsAg, HBeAg and HBcAb at the same time had higher vertical transmission rate.