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Hepatitis C

More than 3 million Americans have chronic hepatitis C, and the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the most common causes of chronic liver disease in the U.S. Chronic hepatitis C can cause cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer.

HCV is spread primarily by contact with infected blood and blood products. Blood transfusions prior to June 1992 and the use of shared, unsterilized, or poorly sterilized needles, syringes, and injection equipment have been the main routes of the spread of HCV in the U.S. Other risk factors for acquiring HCV are: injecting drugs, including having used injection drugs only once many years ago; suffering an inadvertent, HCV-contaminated needle-stick in a hospital or healthcare environment; birth to an HCV-infected mother; and, rarely, sexual contact with someone with hepatitis C.

There is no vaccine for hepatitis C. To guard against hepatitis C:

• Do not share drug needles.
• Wear gloves if you have to touch another person’s blood.
• Use a condom during sex.
• Do not borrow another person’s toothbrush, razor, or anything that could have blood on it.
• Make sure any tattoos or body piercings you receive are performed with sterile tools.

New treatments for hepatitis C

Chronic hepatitis C is most often treated with the drug combination peginterferon and ribavirin, which attacks the hepatitis C virus. Two new drugs that are from a new class of medicines known as HCV protease inhibitors have recently been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 in adult patients who have never been treated or who have failed previous interferon/ribavirin-based therapy. The two drugs—boceprevir and telaprevir—act directly on the HCV protease, an enzyme essential for viral replication. It is important to emphasize that both of these new drugs must be used with pegylated interferon and ribavirin and have complex treatment regimens and rules to prevent resistance. Both will increase substantially the sustained response rate for many patients.

To coincide with the recent development of new treatments for hepatitis C virus infection, we have expanded our services to include our new Program in Clinical Hepatitis. This program specifically offers comprehensive diagnostic and therapeutic services for patients with viral hepatitis (both hepatitis B- and C-infected patients).