Objective: To study the distribution and mutual relation of HBV and HCV in dually infected liver tissue.
Methods: Detected HBV and HCV nucleic acids and their antigens by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization, the cases with HBcAg and HCV RNA positive were tested further on single section by double labeling.
Results: On the section tested by double labeling we could see that positive hepatocytes infected with HBV or HCV were mostly present in different liver lobules, even if the two viruses were seen in the same lobule, most of them were not seen within a single cell.
Conclusions: In most of hepatocytes, there was no direct interference or suppression of each other in the liver tissue dually infected with HBV and HCV. Double labeling method is useful to analyze the coinfection of two viruses in the same tissue.