Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an international health problem. Hepatitis C virus is the main cause of chronic liver disease and accounts for around 150.000 new annual cases of hepatitis C in the United States alone. Apart from being responsible for causing hepatitis C, HCV can also cause hepatic fibrosis, cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. People with acute forms of hepatitis C can in time develop chronic forms of the disease. Furthermore, people who suffer from chronic hepatitis C can develop serious complications over the years, such as cirrhosis and even end-stage liver disease. Statistics indicate that around 170.000.000 people worldwide develop chronic forms of liver disease due to infection with hepatitis C virus. Research results also reveal that there are around 3-4 million new annual cases of infection with hepatitis C virus worldwide.
Once they are infected with hepatitis C virus, people may have differentiated symptoms, experienced at different intensities. Some patients diagnosed with liver disease due to infection with hepatitis C virus may actually have no symptoms at all as their disease progresses. While most patients with mild forms of hepatitis C don't have any clinical symptoms in the early stages of the disease, patients with chronic hepatitis C may not have any symptoms for years, until they develop complications. The only common clinical symptoms that occur in people infected with hepatitis C virus are pronounced fatigue, body weakness, nausea and sometimes vomiting. These flu-like symptoms are usually intermittent and they are replaced by specific symptoms long after the infection becomes serious, in the late stages of the disease.
Hepatitis C virus can be transmitted through direct contact with infected blood or through inadequate use of needles, syringes and other medical utensils. Prior to 1992, the main cause of infection with hepatitis C virus was blood transfusion, as there were no effective means of screening the donated blood from viruses at that time. After 1992, new methods of verifying the quality of the donated blood became available, and the risk of contracting hepatitis C virus from blood transfusions has considerably reduced. However, despite all these measures of preventing infections, hepatitis C virus still accounts for millions of new annual cases of liver disease worldwide. It is believed that inappropriately sterilized medical instruments are nowadays the main cause of infection with hepatitis C virus.
Although for most people who suffer from liver disease due to infection with hepatitis C virus the generated symptoms are mild, HCV can latently lead to serious complications such as cirrhosis and even liver cancer. Hepatitis C virus is a life-threatening infectious agent, as it accounts for more than 10.000 deaths in the United States each year. This is due to the fact that most patients are diagnosed with infectious liver disease late, long after the infection with hepatitis C virus becomes serious. The medical treatments available today for people who suffer from liver disease induced by hepatitis C virus are not entirely effective, and most patients with chronic liver disease experience a relapse after they stop receiving medical treatment.
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease that causes serious impairments inside the human body. In the absence of the appropriate treatment, patients diagnosed with hepatitis C are exposed to a high risk of developing permanent liver damage even malignant tumors (liver cirrhosis). While younger patients with hepatitis C are less likely to develop severe complications, older patients often experience permanent aggravation of their symptoms and are exposed to a very high risk of developing liver cancer. In order to reveal the severity and implications of hepatitis C, as well as the efficiency of existing antiviral therapies among older patients, medical scientists have recently conducted a series of studies and experiments.
A team of French medical researchers has recently conducted a study on hepatitis C patients with ages over 65. The study involved the participation of around 38,000 patients with hepatitis C and was performed at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris. The purpose of the study consisted in finding relevant data on the severity of hepatitis C among older patients, as well as the efficiency of today's medical treatments for hepatitis C. In addition, the efficiency of a series of biochemical markers such as FibroTest, FibroSure and ActiTest was also considered over the entire period of the study. Medical researchers were hoping to reveal if such fibrosis tests can be considered an efficient alternative to traditional forms of liver biopsy.
The study participants were divided in two separate groups. The first group included around 4,000 patients with hepatitis C, while the second group included around 34,000 hepatitis C sufferers who also received FibroTest, FibroSure or ActiTest in the past. In the two combined study groups there were more than 7,000 hepatitis C patients with ages over 65.
After analyzing the reports of the patients in both study groups, the team of medical researchers has obtained a series of interesting results. In the first study group, patients with ages over 65 had a longer duration of hepatitis C virus infection, and were very likely to present signs of genotype 1 HCV. The majority of older patients in the first group had received blood transfusions prior to 1990, and the suspected source of their infection was transfusion with infected blood. Regardless of the overall duration of infection, fibrosis was very common among patients aged 65 or more who had received liver biopsies in the past. Around 200 patients aged 65 or more benefited from antiviral therapy during their lives and 45 percent of elderly patients who were treated with ribavirin and pegylated interferon presented sustained virological response.
In the second study group, among the patients who received FibroTest, FibroSure or Actitest, 58 percent of patients with ages over 80 were diagnosed with cirrhosis, while only 37 percent of patients aged 65-80 and 14 percent of patients with ages under 65 presented signs of cirrhosis. In addition, patients with ages over 80 had better chances to present normal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) than patients with ages under 65.
After carefully analyzing and interpreting the study findings, medical researchers have stated that hepatitis C is more severe and involves lower alanine aminotransferase in patients with ages over 65. The study has also revealed that the existing hepatitis treatments are efficient and that tests with biochemical markers can successfully replace traditional liver biopsy.
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