SCREENING OF PATIENTS FOR POST-TRANSFUSION HEPATITIS C

In Japan there are reportedly 2 million HCV carriers, half of whom may have been infected through blood transfusion.To fulfill the responsibility of our hospital to the community, we undertook screening for undiagnosed hepatitis C patients among 3, 266 patients who had received a blood transfusion in our hospital since its opening (or earlier at other hospitals) and November 1989 when HCV-antibody testing of blood products began, by initiating contact with them by mail. Among respondents, 429 individuals underwent HCV antibody testing. Of those tested, 377 were negative, 52 (12.1%) were positive, and 6 patients requiring treatment (as of April 2002) were discovered. We consider that this kind of effort to discover hepatitis C patients is important to improve their prognosis through early diagnosis.