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 In a survey of 81 emergency room patients born during the “baby
boom” from 1945 to 1965, only 29 percent of participants knew their
risk for the virus was higher than for people born in earlier or
later generations, the study found.
“Baby boomers are five times more likely to have hepatitis C than
those groups born before or after this period,” said senior study
author Dr. Ellie Carmody, an infectious disease researcher at New
York University School of Medicine.
Hepatitis C is usually spread when blood from an infected person
enters the body of someone who isn’t infected. These days, most
people infected with the virus get it from sharing needles or
equipment to inject drugs, but it can also be transmitted during
sex, and until a test for it was developed in the early 1990s,
people could acquire hepatitis C through blood transfusions.
“Because hepatitis C does not cause symptoms until many years after
the original infection, baby boomers may have been infected decades
ago and be unaware of their infection,” Carmody added by email. “The
longer people live with chronic hepatitis C, the more likely they
are to develop complications.”
To see how well baby boomers understand the virus, Carmody and
colleagues asked a sampling of patients treated at one New York
Hospital to complete brief surveys quizzing them about the virus.
Most people surveyed knew hepatitis C could lead to liver failure or
cancer and be transmitted during sex or from blood transfusions. But
most of them also incorrectly assumed the virus could be spread by
kissing or shaking hands.
Only 17 percent correctly noted that there’s no vaccine that can
prevent people from getting the virus, researchers report in the
Journal of Emergency Medicine.
Just 51 percent of respondents knew that hepatitis C can be cured,
even though 77 percent correctly said new medicines have become
available in recent years that make the virus easier to treat.
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Beyond its small size, another limitation of the study is that not
all patients answered every question on the survey, the authors
note. In addition, more than half were not born in the U.S. and 69
percent had a high school diploma level of education or less, so the
sample may not represent the wider population of baby boomers.
Nevertheless, emergency departments have become an important setting
for early detection of infectious diseases and could be a good place
for hepatitis screening, the authors write.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends
that all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C at least once as
part of their standard medical care.
Testing is the only way to detect hepatitis C in many people who
have the virus but don’t feel sick, said Dr. Alexander Millman, a
medical epidemiologist in the CDC’s Division of Viral Hepatitis.
“Hepatitis C infection can last a lifetime and lead to serious liver
problems, including cirrhosis, which is scarring of the liver, liver
cancer, or death,” Millman, who wasn’t involved in the study, said
by email.
“Hepatitis C is the leading cause of liver cancer and the most
common reason for liver transplantation in the United States,”
Millman added.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/207HUKf The Journal of Emergency Medicine,
online March 4, 2016.
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