Azzeri, Amirah

Dahlui, Maznah

Kamarulzaman, Adeeba

McDonald, Scott A.

Mohamed, Rosmawati

Shabaruddin, Fatiha Hana

Tan, Soek-Siam

English

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is often asymptomatic until an occurrence of severe liver disease. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted of a hospital-based case-series in 2014 on 741 consecutive HCV patients presented at the national referral center in Malaysia, a middle-income Southeast Asian country. Mean age at initial presentation was 48 years (SD =11.5; median = 49) with 541 (73%) males. Prior known exposure to HCV risk factors were intravenous drug use (n = 271/737) and blood product transfusion (n = 237/737). HCV-genotype distributions were G3 (37.1%), G1 (21.4%), G2 (0.3%), G4 (0.1%) and G6 (0.1%), with 41.0% untested. Cirrhosis and non-cirrhotic chronic infection was present in 44 [mean (SD) age = 52 (9) years and 56% (mean (SD) age = 44 (12) years] patients, respectively. Of the 327 cirrhotic patients, 36% and 14% had decompensated cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma respectively. Eighty percent patients were eligible for interferon treatment based on their stage of liver disease, but only 50% of the eligible patients received the treatment. Thus, HCV-infected patients at initial presentation to a tertiary care center in Malaysia reflected delayed presentation with a disproportionately high number of patients with liver cirrhotic. Improving access to clinical care and optimizing treatment with direct acting antiviral drug is essential to reduce the country’s burden of hepatitis C

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Clinical characteristics of patients with chronic hepatitis c infection at initial presentation to tertiary care in an Asian middle-income country

https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/files/26386035/Clinical_characteristics_of_patients_with_chronic_hepatitis_c_infection_at_initial_presentation_to_tertiary_care_in_an_asian_middle_income_country.pdf

Clinical characteristics of patients with chronic hepatitis c infection at initial presentation to tertiary care in an Asian middle-income country

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