Incidence of Hepatitis B and hepatitis C among cancer patients received chemo-radiotherapy at An-Najah National University Teaching Hospital ,Al-Watani Hospital , Thabet Thabet Hospital, Khalil Sulaiman Hospital and Augusta Victoria Hospital over the per

Supervisor:

Dr.Hanood Abu Rass

Abstract:

Background: Some epidemiologic studies have suggested that cancer patients are at risk for developing hepatitis attributed to very low immune system, which is mainly affected by chemotherapy and radiation they are exposed to.

Aims:  In our study, we focused on estimating the incidence rate of hepatitis B and C among cancer patients who received different types of therapy, in North- Middle West Bank and Jerusalem,Palestine. Over the period between 2010-2017.

Methods: This research is a case-control study was conducted in the main centers of oncology and chemotherapy in the North-Middle West Bank-Palestine; An-Najah National University Teaching Hospital (Nablus), Al-Watani Hospital (Nablus), Thabit Thabit Hospital (Tulkarm), Khalil Sulaiman Hospital (Jenin) and Augusta Victoria Hospital (Jerusalem).It included a total number of (11000) cancer patients (the exposed group) and (1032) non-cancer patients (non-exposed group) which are defined as hemodialysis-non cancer patients of the same sites and sittings. Some data were adopted from the departments of epidemiology related to the Ministry of Health and the remaining were collected  from patients' medical records using a data collection sheet. SPSS software version 20 is used for data entry and analysis.

Results: HBV was the highest among the study exposed sample with a percentage of 62.9%compared to HCV with a percentage of 37.1%.

67.1%of them were exposed to chemotherapy and 32.9% were exposed to radiotherapy.Colon cancer has the highest percentage among the study sample, 10.75%. While breast cancer and AML took 9.5% for each .

Significant Pearson Chi-Square is>0.05 ,which  means no relationship between the reactivation of hepatitis and the treatment with either chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

Conclusion: According to statistical analysis; results show no significant association between receiving chemo-radiotherapy and occurrence of hepatitis as evidenced by significant value >0.05.

Keywords: Cancer (CA), Hepatitis B Virus (HBV), Hepatitis C Virus (HCV), Palestine, Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy, Reactivation.