Risk factors and incidence of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV among syphilis patients in Shanghai, China.

Introduction: There is great need to screen for HIV, HBV, HBC and syphilis co-infected cases in china because of high prevalance of this disease.

Aim: To uncover the risk factors and incidence of hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among syphilis patients.

Material and methods: A total of 5,206 patients with syphilis were enrolled in this retrospective cohort study. The data of clinical and laboratory characteristics of the participants were collected. The correlations between the clinical characteristics and HBV, HCV and HIV co-infection with syphilis were analysed.

Results: The prevalence of HBV, HCV and HIV among syphilis patients in our study was 8.4%, 1.8%, and 10.1%, respectively. The median age was significantly lower in the HBV/syphilis co-infected group (47.5 with IQR 36-58 vs. 52 with IQR 36-61), the majority of co-infected individuals were male (251, 57.6% vs. 185, 42.4%). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that co-infected with patients co-infected with HCV and combined with gonococcal infection and herpes virus type II infection were independently associated with HBV co-infection in syphilis patients. Multivariate logistic regression analysis found that male gender, age below 30 years, age group of 31-44-years old, co-infection with HSV-2, never married and divorced, and having a RPR titre of ≥ 1 : 32 were independently associated with HIV co-infection.

Conclusions: HIV co-infection or homosexuality among syphilis patients had no significant impact on the prevalence of HBV or HCV in the study.