Acute polyarthritis revealing hepatitis E

We report a case of acute hepatitis E occurring in a 51-year-old French woman, revealed by an abrupt onset of polyarthritis involving the ankles and knees followed by the wrists and fingers. Polyarthritis lasted up to 3 months without recurrence. Our case was characterised by a 9-month prolonged viraemia with persistence of specific IgM in the serum. The hepatitis E virus belonged to genotype 3 and may have been contracted in France or during travel to hyperendemic areas. Our case shows that acute polyarthritis could be another systemic manifestation of hepatitis E virus infection.