Risk of Hepatitis B Infections in Olympic Wrestling

Selda Bereket-Yücel ^1*

¹ Celal Bayar University, Turkey

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: seldabereket{at}hotmail.com.

Accepted 21 January 2007

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalance of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and occult HBV infection (OC-HBV) in Turkish olympic wrestlers. The second purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between HBV DNA values in sweat and blood. A total of 70 male olympic wrestlers were recruited as the study sample. As a result of the standard monoclonal antibody-based hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) detection, none of the olympic wrestlers carried HBsAg in this study. On the other hand, according to real time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for serum HBV DNA detection in this study, 13% of the wrestlers has OC-HBV infection. 11% of the participants has HBV DNA in their sweat. In addition, there was a significant relationship between HBV DNA values in the blood and sweat of the wrestlers (r= 0,52, p<0.01). The results proposed that other than bleeding wounds and mucous membranes, sweating could be another way of transmitting the HBV infections in contact sports. The HBV test should be done and each wrestler should be vaccinated at the beginning of his career.

Key Words: Infectious Disease, Occult HBV, Sports, Sweating

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