To determine the possibility of for sexual transmission of hepatitis C virus, we report a study on 26 cases of type C liver disease that were evaluated in the Department of Internal Medicine of the Ewha Womans University(Mok-dong hospital) over a period of 22 months from January of 1994 to October of 1995. The results were as follows,

1) There were 1 acute hepatitis case, 19 chronic hepatitis cases, and 6 liver cirrhosis cases.

2) The positive rate of anti-HCV of spouse was 3.8%. The positive rate was not significant compared to control group(total age adjusted prevalence).

3) The positive rate of anti-HCV of spouse was not significantly related with duration of mar-riage or severity of disease.

Intrafamilial spread of HCV by sexual transmission is one of the route for transmission of disease. But these result suggested it was uncommon route of transmission of hepatitis C.

Patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis(HD) potentially have an increased risk of exposure to viral hepatitis. The reported prevalence of antiHCV in hemodialysis patients varied widely form 7.6-54% according to dialysis center and there were there were many reports that showed the correlation between the prevalence of antiHCV and duration of HD or transfusion amount.

Fifty-four patients on regular hemodialysis at our hospital were evaluated for the presence of hepatitic C antibody(antiHCV) with the comparison of various parameters such as duration of HD, amount of transfusion, past history of hepatitis, serologic markers of hepatitis B and current liver function. AntiHCV using second-generation enzyme linked immunosorbant assay were found in six of 54HD patients(11.1%). Among six antiHCV(+) percent four patients were found to have HCV-RNA in their plasma detected by PCR. The percent of male patients were significantly higher in antiHCV(+) group(66.7 vs 31.3%, p<0.05). The positivity of antiHCV did not correlated with the duration of HD and amount of transfusion(p>0.05), but prevalence increased over 2 years (5.9% in 1991, 11.1% in 1993) and HBsAg prevalence remained unchanged(9.8% in 1991, 9.3% in 1993).

Therefore, regular follow-up of liver function test and use of separate machine for antiHCV positive patients may be needed to prevent the transmission of the hepatitis C virus during the hemodialysis process itself.