Author information
1 Liver Disease Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda.
2 Department of Gastroenterology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Abstract
Hepatitis D virus (HDV) is an RNA virus that requires the presence of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) to complete its life cycle. Worldwide, chronic HDV infection is believed to occur in ~5% of people chronically infected with HBV and is the most virulent of the chronic viral hepatitis infections1 . While acute hepatitis D has an increased risk of liver failure compared to acute hepatitis B, chronic hepatitis D may often be missed as elevations in aminotransferases can be attributed to concomitant hepatitis B infection1 .
