Objective      To provide the evidence for the diagnosis and treatment of sporadic hepatitis E(HE) by studying its epidemiological and clinical characteristics in recent years.      Methods       Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of sporadic HE including etiology

age of disease onset

epidemic season

symptoms

and signs

and other clinical biochemical indications of 282 sporadic HE patients admitted to our institute from March 2003 to July 2008 were retrospectively

analyzed. Differences in clinical characteristics and severity between HE patients without HBV superinfection (simple HE group) and those with HBV superinfection(HBV superinfection group) were compared.      Results      The HE patients with HBV superinfection accounted for 35.5% of the 282 HE patients. The disease occurred at different ages of the patients and mainly occurred in patients of simple HE group at the age of 35-60 years(accounting for 60.7%). The male and female ratio was 3:1

which was significantly higher in simple HE group than in HBV superinfection group(P0.001). The disease occurred in differents seasons. Simple HE mainly occurred in Spring and Summer(accounting for 74.5%)

and HE with HBV superinfection occurred sporadically in different seasons. The most common symptoms of the patients were fatigue

anorexia

and jaundice

which were observed in 83.4%

82.8%

and 75.9 % of the patients. The ratio of total bilirubin(TBIL)/direct bilirubin(DBIL) was greater than 0.5 in 73.4% of the patients

indicating that cholestasis can be diagnosed in these patients. The incidence of skin and sclera jaundice

the serum bilirubin level and the DBIL/TBIL ratio were significantly higher in male patients than in female patients(P0.05). The serum albumin(Alb) level

prothrombin time(PT)

and the incidence of severe HE were significantly higher in HBV superinfection group than in simple HE group(t=3.221

P=0.001; t=3.330

P=0.001; Chi-squar＝13.168，P=2.0×10

-4

).     Conclusion      The indicence of HE with HBV superinfection is higher than that of fulminant HE. The incidence of sporadic HE varies with seasons and age of patients. Cholestasis and liver function impairment are more severe in male and old HE patients than in female and young HE patients. Liver damage is severe in HE patients with HBV superinfection

which can progress to severe hepatitis. Importance should be attached to the diagnosis and treatment of HE in old patients.