Abstract: Objective To determine the distribution of hepatitis C virus genotypes in patients with chronic hepatitis C,and to study the serum HCV RNA levels in patients with different HCV genotype infection. Methods The levels of serum HCV RNA was measured with real-time fluorescent quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction,the serum anti-HCV was detected by ELISA,ALT by automatic biochemistry analyzer,the levels of hyaluronic acid,laminin,procollagen type Ⅲ N-terminal peptide and collage type Ⅳ were detectd by chemiluminescence iummunoassay and the HCV genotypes in 218 patients with chronic hepatitis C were determined by gene chip. Results There were nine different subgenotypes of HCV in 218 samples,including genotype lb,2a,3a,3b and 6 genotype in 208 sera and lb+2a,lb+3b,lb+6,2a+3a in other 10 sera,respectively;Genotype 1b was the main one（77.1%,168/218）,and the genotype 2a was the second（8.7%,19/218）;There was no significant difference between the serum HCV RNA levels in 208 patients with different HCV genotype infection（F=0.932,P>0.05）;There was no significant difference between HCV genotype and gender as well as the levels of four blood markers of hepatic fibrosis in 168 patients with 1b and 40 with non-genotype 1b infection（x²=0.857,P>0.05）. Conclusions HCV 1b is the main prevalent genotype in patients with chronic hepatitis C,and the serum level of HCV RNA is not related to HCV genotype infection.

Key words: Hepatitis C, Real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR, Gene chip, Genotypes