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A new study reveals that birth cohort screening for hepatitis C is cost effective in the primary care setting. The studypublished early online in Annals of Internal Medicine shows that each year thousands of lives could be saved throughproactive screening strategies that could identify more than800,000 cases, which currently remain undiagnosed. Hepatitis C can cause inflammation and permanent liver damage andis most prevalent amongst people born from 1945 to 1965.Approximately 1.5% of the nation's population is infected withhepatitis C (HCV) and about 50% to 70% of those are unaware oftheir infection. This is a matter of concern as HCV progressesslowly with risks of serious complications increasing as time goeson. 13,000 people died of HCV in 2005 and according to experts,without changes to current case identification and treatment HCVdeaths are projected to rise to 35,000 mortalities per year by2030. At the moment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)only recommends antibody screening to individuals with health orlifestyle indicators, such as a history of injecting drugs, havinga blood transfusion prior to 1992 or chronic heodialysis patients,which suggest a potential infection. Identification rates of HCVare low because of problems in implementing risk-based screeningdue to the limited time of primary care visits and unease indiscussing behavioral risks. The researchers decided to assess whether proactively screening thebirth cohort of people born from 1945 through 1965 for HCV would becost effective in the primary care setting. To evaluate the costeffectiveness they developed a computer model for four scenarios: No screening or treatment; Risk-based screening and standard treatment consisting of pegylatedinterferon and ribavirin; Birth cohort screening with standard treatment; Birth cohort screening with standard treatment for patientsdiagnosed with hepatitis C genotype 2 or 3, and standard treatmentplus a direct acting antiviral drug (DAA) for those diagnosed withgenotype 1 disease, the most predominant genotype in the UnitedStates They discovered that birth cohort screening followed by standardtreatment decreased mortality by 82,300 at a cost of $15,700 perquality adjusted life-year (QALY) gained compared with the currentstrategy of risk-based screening. They also found that byincorporating DAA treatment to standard therapy when indicatedabout 121,000 deaths could be prevented compared with risk-basedscreening at a cost of $35,000 per QALY gained. Lead author of the study David Rein, PhD, Principal ResearchScientist, Public Health Research Department, NORC at theUniversity of Chicago concluded: "The important things to remember about birth cohort screeningare that, first, the strategy would identify over 800,000 peoplewith hepatitis C if it were fully implemented, and second, thestrategy is at least as cost-effective as many routinelyadministered preventive practices such as breast cancer screening or colorectal screening." Written by Petra Rattue Copyright: Medical News Today Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today Additional References Citations. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as China cardboard Pallet Display , Metal Display Stands for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Hook Display Stands.
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