A Study of Australia-Antigen-Positive Blood Donors and Their Recipients, with Special Reference to Liver Histology

Abstract
Systematic screening of 13,300 consecutively registered Danish voluntary blood donors revealed 24 donors with persistent Au-antigenemia. None of these had any clinical signs of disease. Liver biopsies were performed on all the Au-antigenemic donors. In only one of the 24 biopsies was cirrhosis demonstrated. None of the remaining 23 biopsies, of which six showed a completely normal histologic picture, exhibited the changes seen in viral hepatitis.