June 14, 2002 - More than half of the patients infected with hepatitis C can now be treated successfully, up from one in ten only five years ago. Summary from WebMD of the Hepatitis C Consensus Conference.

June 13, 2002 - More than 4 million Americans are infected with hepatitis C, and of this group, the majority experience chronic infection, defined as detection of the virus in blood over at least a 6-month period. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the most common blood-borne infection, and transmission now occurs primarily by injection drug use, high-risk sexual behaviors and occupational exposures such as accidental needle sticks, and mother-to-infant transmission.

A two-and-a-half-day National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Development Conference on Management of Hepatitis C: 2002 was held this week on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. Here is a NIH press release on the conference.

The conference produced a Preliminary Draft Statement on the management and treatment of hepatitis C. (link is no longer available)

Combining two therapies, interferon and the antiviral medication ribavirin, remains the best way to treat hepatitis C infection, according to the draft consensus panel statement. Summary from Health Reuters/Yahoo. (link is no longer available)

NIH Consensus Statements are prepared by a nonadvocate, non-Federal panel of experts, based on (1) presentations by investigators working in areas relevant to the consensus questions during a 2-day public session; (2) questions and statements from conference attendees during open discussion periods that are part of the public session; and (3) closed deliberations by the panel during the remainder of the second day and morning of the third. This statement is an independent report of the panel and is not a policy statement of the NIH or the Federal Government.

The statement reflects the panel's assessment of medical knowledge available at the time the statement was written. Thus, it provides a "snapshot in time" of the state of knowledge on the conference topic. When reading the statement, keep in mind that new knowledge is inevitably accumulating through medical research.

RenalWEB has an extensive listing of on-line resources for hepatitis on the Hepatitis Topic Page.


[This message has been edited by Gary Peterson (edited 02-12-2003).]