Abstract: Objective To investigate the clinical and serological characteristics of hepatitis E in the elderly patients. Methods The differences in the clinical characteristics and serum biochemical indexes between 50 elderly patients with hepatitis E(elderly group) and 50 young and middle-aged patients with hepatitis E(young and middle-aged group) were analyzed. Results The incidence rate of liver failure, skin itching, comorbidities and complications and the hospital stay and disease course were higher while the incidence rate of fever was lower in elderly group than that in young and middle-aged group(P<0.01). Before treatment, the levels of total bilirubin(TBiL), creatinine(Cr), ptrothrombin time(PT), international normalized ratio(INR) were significantly higher and the levels of alanine aminotransferase(ALT)and albumin(ALB) were lower in elderly group than those in young and middle-aged group(P<0.05).After treatment, the levels of TBiL,ALT, aspartate aminotransferase(AST), gamma-glutamyl transferase(γ-GGT), alkaline phosphatase(AKP) in the two groups were significantly lower and the level of ALB was significantly higher than that before treatment(P<0.05), and the levels of TBiL, AKP, PT, INR decreased more significantly in young and middle-aged group(P<0.05). Conclusions The elderly patients with hepatitis E have obvious skin pruritus, deep jaundice, more hypoalbuminemia, high incidence of liver failure, common complications, prolonged course of disease and slow recovery, and most patients have a good prognosis.

Key words: aged, hepatitis E, liver failure, clinical characteristics, serological characteristics, prognosis