A Case of Acute Hepatitis E

Korean J Hepatol > Volume 8(3); 2002 > Article

The Korean Journal of Hepatology 2002;8(3): 312-316.

증례 : 급성 E 형 간염 1 예 ( Case Reports : A Case of Acute Hepatitis E )

A Case of Acute Hepatitis E

Nam Jin Kim,June Sung Lee,Kyung Ah Kim,Hye Ran Lee,Jang Weon Oh,Yi Dae Cho,Woo Jin Lee,Hyun Wook Baik,Young Bin Jeon,Chung Yong Kim

Department of Internal Medicine, In-Je University College of Medicine, Ilsan Paik Hospital, Goyang, Korea; Liver Research Institute, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea*

ABSTRACT

Hepatitis E is an infectious viral disease with clinical and morphologic features of acute hepatitis. Although HEV infection is endemic in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast and Central Asia, a large outbreak of hepatitis E was identified in China. Smaller outbreaks have been observed in the Middle East, northern and western parts of Africa, and Mexico. Sporadic hepatitis E also has been observed in several countries. In nonendemic regions, the sporadic cases of hepatitis E are almost always associated with travel to HEV-endemic regions. In Korea, there has been no report on hepatitis E. Recently, we experienced a case of acute icteric hepatitis in which serologic study showed seroconversion of IgM anti-HEV. The patient did not have any travel history to an HEV-endemic area. We report this as an initial case of acute hepatitis E in Korea. (Korean J Hepatol 2002;8:312-316)

KeyWords: Acute Hepatitis E