HEPATITIS C AND PREGNANCY

Year 2003, Volume: 16 Issue: 3, 236 - 238, 03.12.2016

Hüsnü Gökaslan Hale Bengisu Zehra Neşe Kavak

Abstract

Hepatitis C is caused by a single stranded RNA virus of the family Flaviviridae (1). Six major genotypes of Hepatitis C are distinguished. Hepatitis C is usually transmitted by inoculation of infected blood or blood product or less frequently by sexual intercourse. HCV is more common in males than in females, in blacks than in whites and in middle-aged adults (30-50y) than in other groups. Up to 40% of people infected with Hepatitis C deny any iv drug abuse or high risk sexual behavior (2).
HCV is a major cause of parenterally transmitted hepatitis (90%) with unscreened blood donors. Screening of blood donors has markedly decreased the increased incidence of posttransfusion hepatitis. The incidence of transfusion hepatitis has fallen to 0.03% per unit transfused since the introduction of screening with anti-HCV assays.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (1998) cites a seroprevelance of 1.8 percent or 4 million infected Americans (1). In USA, the estimated number of new HCV infections annually exceeds 150.000 (1994, Alter & Mast)
(3). Acute hepatitis C typically is mild and unnoticed. Up to 75% of infected individuals become chronic carriers and progress to cirrhosis and primary liver cancer. Chronic
hepatitis C and related cirrhosis compete with alcoholic liver disease as the most common conditions seen in hospital hepatology practice in the United States. Together they are the most common cause of primary liver cancer there and in other regions of the world with low endemicity for hepatitis B . Hepatitis C related cirrhosis is the most common indication for liver transplantation in the United States (4).

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