Many Children Suffer From Hepatitis C Without Diagnosis And Treatment

Many Children Suffer From Hepatitis C Without Diagnosis And Treatment.
Many children with hepatitis C go undiagnosed and untreated, which can prima donna to modest liver expense later in life, a new study warns. Researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine esteemed that national data shows that between 0,2 percent and 0,4 percent of children in the United States are infected with hepatitis C. Based on that data, they cogitating they would rouse about 12,155 cases of pediatric infection in Florida, yet only 1,755 cases were identified, a mere 14,4 percent of the expected loads of cases.

So "Our study showed a lack of adequate identification of hepatitis C virus infection in children that could be widespread throughout the nation," said manage researcher Dr Aymin Delgado-Borrego, a pediatric gastroenterologist and auxiliary professor of pediatrics. Hepatitis C is groove on a "ticking bomb. It seems harmless until it explodes".

Most children and adults infected with hepatitis C do not have symptoms or only nonspecific symptoms, such as weakness or abdominal pain, Delgado-Borrego said. She planned to proximate the findings Sunday at the Digestive Disease Week conference in New Orleans. Delgado-Borrego chose Florida for the contemplate because it is one of the few states that requires all cases of the infection to be reported to the townsman health department.

"Not only was there a lack of proper identification, but among the children that have been identified the percentage of those receiving medical tribulation is extremely and unacceptably low". Based on these data, Delgado-Borrego's group found only about 1,2 percent of children with hepatitis C were receiving healing by a pediatric hepatologist.

Most young children get the infection from their mothers while in the womb. That accounts for about 60 percent of the infections in puerile children, Delgado-Borrego said. Teenagers can get it through IV tranquillizer use and other substance abuse. So why are so many kids missed? According to Delgado-Borrego, there's a widespread require of awareness of the condition and adequate screening is not often done.

Moreover, children are too often not referred to treatment. "Primary circumspection doctors should screen all children who are at risk for hepatitis C infection, such as those whose mothers are infected," Delgado-Borrego said. In addition, infected children should be referred to specialists.

And "Early authentication of pediatric hepatitis C infection would promising labourer us cure the infection in over 50 percent of children that currently have it," Delgado-Borrego pointed out. "This would prevent children from liver damage as well as possible liver failure, liver cancer and even advanced death". Dr Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at New York University "this is a mellifluous shocking study".

Siegel said early diagnosis of hepatitis C is very important, especially in children. "Because if kids have it they have a lifetime of revelation to it, so the chances of damage to the liver is very high" male-size. Hepatitis C is the greatest cause of liver transplantation.