Hepatitis in a Maintenance Hemodialysis Unit

Abstract

Fourteen of 27 patients being treated with maintenance hemodialysis and 1 staff nurse from the general wards developed hepatitis between August 1966 and April 1967; 1 patient died. Eight of the attacks were anicteric and three of these, asymptomatic. No cases occurred among the nurses, technicians, and doctors of the Maintenance Haemodialysis Unit. Gamma globulin modified the disease in the patients and may have prevented it altogether in the staff. The epidemiology of the outbreak and the apparent efficacy of gamma globulin suggest that the epidemic may have been due to infectious hepatitis.