Chronic hepatitis B infection in pediatric population: a retrospective study from a tertiary center in North-Eastern Romania

NORTH-EASTERN ROMANIA (Abstract): Chronic viral hepatitis B is the precursor stage of cirrhosis and the 10 th leading cause of death worldwide.WHO estimated in 2019 that approximately 296 million people were chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus and over 800,000 deaths.The aim of study was to describe characteristics of chronic HBV infection in pediatric population from a te rtiary center in North-Eastern Romania.Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 148 pediatric patients with chronic HBV infection who had visits from 2011 to 2019 to St. Mary's Hospital Iasi (Romania).The HVB infection in study group was analyzed regarding demographic characteristics, distribution of pediatric patients in relation to va ccination status, risk factors, HBV infection stage, and clinical manifestations.The qualitative variables were characterized through frequencies distributions.The quantitative variables were characterized through descriptive statistics (averages, standard deviations).P < 0.05 was the threshold for significance.Results: Most of the patients (87,83%) had vertical transmission, while 18.91% had horizontal transmission.Most of the pediatric population was vaccinated (87.83%), while 11.48% had incomplete vaccination.The most common risk factor was vertical transmission (81.8%), followed by horizontal transmission, surgical i nterventions (10.13%), frequent hospitalizations (4.1%), and dental procedures (3.4%).Among patients with HBV infection, most of them presented loss of appetite (16.2%), fo llowed by abdominal pain (12.8%), hepatomegaly (12.2%), and physical asthenia (4.1%).Conclusions: Most children from our study were in chronic hepatitis B phase and immunetolerant phase.Pediatric patients with chronic viral B infection can experience a slow pr ogression of the disease without specific signs and symptoms for a long period, especially when the diagnosis is made at an infant or young child age.