What is hepatitis C?
Hepatitis is swelling and inflammation of the liver. It can be caused by several things: heavy alcohol use, medications such as acetaminophen,
and certain medical conditions. However, hepatitis is usually caused by a virus, which is hepatitis C virus. Unfortunately,
70% of infected people are unaware of their status. Most infected patients are people who were born from 1945 through 1965.
There are two kinds of hepatitis C, which are acute and chronic hepatitis C. Acute hepatitis C is a short-term illness that occurs within the first 6 months
and it leads to chronic infection. Chronic hepatitis C is a long-term illness that occurs after 6 months, and lead to serious liver problems such as cirrhosis
or liver cancer.
20% of patients who are infected acute hepatitis C are resolved; however, 80% of the patients are led to chronic hepatitis C.
How is Hepatitis C spread?
Hepatitis C is spread due to exposure to infectious blood. There are several ways to get transmitted. Common cases are current or past injection drug users
due to sharing of needles or syringes, needlestick injuries in health care settings, or being born to a mother who has Hepatitis C. Moreover, patients with
HIV infection, recipients of blood transfusions
or organ transplants before July 1992, and people who had sex with an HCV-infected patient are risk to have hepatitis C.
What are symptoms?
Most patients who are infected hepatitis C are usually asymptomatic, so most of them are not able to recognize that they are infected. However,
they can be symptomatic from 2 weeks to 6 months after infection. For acute hepatitis patients, they usually have fatigue, anorexia, weakness, abdominal
pain, fever, and jaundice. On the other hand, chronic
hepatitis C does not have symptoms. However, they can have symptoms, but this is because of liver damage not because of chronic hepatitis C.
How would you know if you have Hepatitis C?s
It is hard to figure out whether people are infected or not because hepatitis C usually does not have symptoms. The best way to figure out is to get tested with hepatitis C antibody test. It usually takes 3-6 months to become positive. However, this test may have results that can be false positive. It is recommended to confirm diagnosis with hepatitis C virus test, which measures HCV-RNA in blood. People who were born from 1945-1965, received donated blood before
1992, have abnormal liver tests or liver disease, and are infected with HIV are recommended to get tested for hepatitis C.
Medications
There are several medications for hepatitis C; however, these medications have many interactions with other medications. Hence, it
is important to tell your doctor what medications patients are taking.
These are the medications for hepatitis C.
- Peg-interferon 2a (Pegasys)
- Peg-interferon 2b (peg-intron)
- Ribavirin (Rebetol)
- Boceprevir (Victrelis)
- Telaprevir (Incivek)
- Simeprevir (Olyisio)
- Paritaprevir/Dasabuvir/Ombitasvir (Viekira Pak)
- Grazoprevir/Elbasvir (Zepatier)
- Sofosbuvir (Sovaldi)
- Daclatasvir (Daklinza)
- Ledipasvir/sofosbuvir (Harvoni)
However, peg-interferon 2a and 2b are not used anymore because it is too toxic to finish treatment.
Additional links:
http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hcv/cfaq.htm#overview
http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/HCV/PDFs/HepCGeneralFactSheet.pdf
http://www.hep-druginteractions.org/
References:
http://www.avert.org/sex-stis/sexually-transmitted-infections/hepatitis-c
http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hcv/hcvfaq.htm#section1
http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/hcv/cfaq.htm#overview
http://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/HCV/PDFs/HepCGeneralFactSheet.pdf
