HCV positivity at postmortem among 793 heroin addicts examined in Piedmont (Italy).

BACKGROUND: During a wider study in progress at the Turin University with the cooperation of the Departments of Anatomy, Pharmacology and Forensic Medicine, and of Biomedical Sciences and Human Oncology, anti-HCV antibodies were determined in the blood of drug-addicts submitted to judicial autopsy. METHODS: This investigation was carried out on blood samples taken at postmortem from 793 subjects submitted to judicial autopsy in Piedmont from 1977 to 1996. This is a retrospective investigation and these cases represented 93.9% of the total autopsies, and 98.6% of them came from Turin and province. RESULTS: The percentage of subjects for whom the search for anti-HCV antibodies proved positive was 75.8% (74.5% among males, and 86.5% among females). These data remained relatively unchanged through the years, with a range 64.3% to 85.3%. They are close to those recorded in the international literature with regard to living subjects admitted to public health institutions for the prevention and treatment of drug addiction. CONCLUSIONS: As the positivity related to age, lower values were found among the 15-20-year olds as compared to the older ones: 57.1% among the former, and 85.5% among the latter. This difference may be due to a longer period of drug addiction among subjects deceased at an older age, with a more prolonged risk of infection.