A Study of Australia-Antigen-Positive Blood Donors and Their Recipients, with Special Reference to Liver Histology

Systematic screening of 13,300 consecutively registered Danish voluntary blood donors revealed 24 donors with persistent Au-antigenemia. None of these had any clinical signs of disease. Liver biopsies were performed on all the Au-antigenemic donors. In only one of the 24 biopsies was cirrhosis demonstrated. None of the remaining 23 biopsies, of which six showed a completely normal histologic picture, exhibited the changes seen in viral hepatitis. Before detection of the antigenemia 10 of the Au-antigenemic donors had given blood to 22 recipients. A retrospective study gave no evidence of past or present acute hepatitis in any of these recipients. No Au-antigen or Au-antibody was found in any of the surviving recipients. The apparent absence of post-transfusion hepatitis in the recipients may be related to the absence of acute and chronic hepatitis in the blood donors.