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Diagnosed, staged and untreated: Hepatitis C fibrosis severity
by transient elastography (TE) in an inner city clinic
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....."We report on our clinical experience in the first year (3/2014 - 6/2015) of assessing fibrosis by fibroscan among HCV patients with or without HIV co-infection seen at the CORE hepatitis clinic.....In our inner city clinic which serves predominantly non-white patients, 40% of pts referred for HCV care had severe fibrosis (F3/F4); 28% had cirrhosis. Access to HCV medications remains a significant barrier to treatment with only 28% of patients on Medicaid eligible for HCV medications."
Reported by Jules Levin
IDSA 2015 Oct 7-11 San Diego, CA
Oluwatoyin M Adeyemi, MD, Benjamin Go, MD, Anna Hotton PhD, MD, Maureen Gallagher, NP, Deborah Wolen, NP, Rebecca Goldberg, RN, Crystal Winston, Dan Taussig, Sonia Vibhakar, PharmD, Gregory Huhn, MD, MPHTM Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center, Stroger Hospital of Cook County and Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL
·In our inner city clinic which serves predominantly ethnic minorities, most HCV patients had publicly funded insurance: Medicaid, CountyCare, Medicare.
·38% of patients referred for HCV care had severe fibrosis (F3/F4); 26% had cirrhosis by TE.
·Access to HCV medications remains a significant barrier to treatment with only 28% of patients on Medicaid eligible for HCV medications.
·Gaps in the HCV diagnosis-to-cure cascade and disparities in long term HCV-related outcomes will persist unless access to HCV treatment is universal.
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