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The recent article by Piazza et al¹ on sexual transmission of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and efficacy of prophylaxis with intramuscular immune serum globulins (IGs) interested us greatly. The results obtained from this controlled trial showed that HCV can be sexually transmitted by chronically infected patients and provided strong evidence of a protective role of IG produced from unscreened plasma.

More information could be obtained by investigating the presence of HCV RNA by polymerase chain reaction in the IG lots used in this trial. In a recent study,² we showed that 30 (45.5%) of 66 IG lots produced between 1990 and 1992 tested positive for HCV RNA, while 100% of the lots were strongly anti-HCV reactive by third-generation recombinant immunoblot assay. All 41 IG lots produced since 1993 from screened plasma tested negative for both HCV RNA and anti-HCV antibodies. Since IG produced from unscreened plasma was not subjected . . . [Full Text of this Article]