Hepatitis C tests may be unneeded
DEAR DOCTOR: My doctor recommends that I be tested for hepatitis C, and I’ve also seen commercials urging people to get tested for the virus — but I have no risk factors. Is it really necessary to get tested for it?
DEAR READER: The majority of people who become acutely infected with hepatitis C will not have any symptoms. Of people who acquire the infection, 15 percent to 45 percent will clear it on their own; that is, their immune system will ward off the virus.
However, anywhere from 55 percent to 85 percent of patients will develop a chronic infection and a chronic inflammation of the liver. Many of them won’t have symptoms until the chronic infection leads to cirrhosis of the liver. That development can occur more than 20 years after the onset of infection.
A 2012 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended a one-time testing for hepatitis C for those born in the United States between 1945 and 1965, saying it would reduce death rates and liver cancer rates from the disease.
These patients are between 52 and 72, and many of those at high risk have already seen a doctor and had multiple liver tests. The likelihood of them being newly diagnosed with hepatitis C is low, and the likelihood that the infection will lead to cirrhosis or liver cancer if liver enzymes have been persistently normal is similarly low.
Because of that, the focus on hepatitis C screening should be on those with high risk of infection and a high likelihood of transmitting hepatitis C to others. If you’ve been seeing a doctor regularly, have had no previous risk factors and are not at a high risk of new infection, there may be no need to be screened for hepatitis C.
Send your questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla.edu, or write: Ask the Doctors, c/o Media Relations, UCLA Health, 924 Westwood Blvd., Suite 350, Los Angeles, CA, 90095.