Skip to main content

Hepatitis C

Image
By
Hepatitis C, a small RNA virus that causes infection and damage to the liver, had its moment of public recognition when the well-endowed silverscreen celebrity Pamela Anderson of Baywatch fame got diagnosed with it. The way she contracted it was equally sensational: she had shared the needle for a skin tattoo with her boyfriend, Tommy Lee, who carried the infection. The gossipy tale went further to her litigating against him for concealed the information, but as often happens there, they finally united by wedlock!
Hepatitis C infection is indeed more common than most of us probably know. Of all us who consider ourselves perfectly healthy and volunteer to donate blood, 1% harbour the infection. In other words, approximately 10 million people in India have the infection and do not know it.
Hepatitis C virus is a stealthy one that hardly ever produces jaundice, the commonly known symptom of liver disease. It lodges in the liver and nibbles away at its cells over years. During this phase of 10-20 years, the host has hardly any symptom and hence does not seek medical attention. When considerable liver damage has resulted in liver cirrhosis (20%develop it), symptoms begin to appear: lethargy, fatigue, swelling of the feet, abdominal distention or vomiting of blood, drawing attention to this underlying cause. It also increases the risk of developing liver cancer.
There are 2 common scenarios: one is of a person in forties, who, while undergoing blood tests for a visa application or executive checkup finds his liver tests (SGPT) to be abnormal, and further tests reveal the cause to be Hepatitis C; or tests positive during screening for blood donation. Almost invariably, when asked, they recall having had a blood transfusion, surgery or injections with non-disposable needles. These are the lucky ones as their liver disease is usually not advanced, and stand a good chance of cure with anti-viral treatment. The other scenario is of a person, who presents with symptoms of Liver Cirrhosis, having had a blood transfusion from a commercial blood bank 20 or more years ago. They do not tolerate treatment well, their disease progresses relentlessly and find themselves in need of a liver transplanation.
Hepatitis C is the cause of liver cirrhosis in 20 -30%, alcohol and Hepatitis B being the other common ones. Any person who has underone a blood transfusion or surgery should get himself tested for this infection, as should anyone whose liver function test shows derangement. If diagnosed before much liver damge has occured, the infection is curable. Antiviral treatment consists of weekly injections of Interferon and daily tablets of ribavirin for periods of 6 to 12 months. The viral strain common in India (genotype 3) fortunately responds well to treatment, as more than 250 happy patients treated at SGPGI will tell you.
There is unfortunately no vaccine yet for preventing Hepatitis C, unlike Hepatitis B. Hence prevention and early detection assume greater importance. If you have ever received a blood transfusion or undergone a surgery, make sure you have taken the test for Hepatitis C, and have come out negative.
Published in HT City of Hindustan Times Lucknow edition dated 14 February, 2010.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Doctor’s Dress

By
The familiar white coat worn by physicians as their distinctive dress for over 100 years, has started generating  murmurs  of controversy. It is not uncommon to find the blood pressure to be higher when measured by a white-coat-wearing-doctor in the hospital or clinic than the readings obtained at home by relatives.  This is due to the anxiety that the white coat and the hospital setting evokes in patients, and has been termed “White Coat Hypertension”. Mature clinicians often routinely subtract a few points from these measurements when entering records in case charts or calculating the dose of anti-hypertensive medications to be prescribed. The white coat scares children too.  Kids often express their dislike for this dress by crying and screaming and by denying access to their bellies or chest for examination by paediatricians in this attire. Many pediatricians across the world have folded up their white coats and taken to informal colourful dressing to...
2 comments
Read more

Food Fads in Liver Disorders

By
In an attempt at trying to do well to those they love, spouses and parents often enforce diets on patients of liver diseases that often turn out to be detrimental. The commonest food fad is pale insipid boiled cabbage being doled out to nauseous patients suffering from hepatitis that makes them puke even more.  The liver, in a way, is a buzzing manufacturing unit that requires lots of energy to keep its multiple functions going. And it derives all this from the food we eat. During disease, such as during an attack of jaundice, when many of the liver cells get killed, the liver attemptsdamage control by trying to regenerate quickly. For its cells to multiply however, it requires a generous supply of energy that comes from carbohydrates, and protein, the building block for its cells and tissues. Boiled green vegetables unfortunately have neither of these. Hence the situation often progresses to that of a starved liver unable to recuperate due to cut-off food suppl...
2 comments
Read more

Teaching and Learning – is there a trick?

By
One of the big mistakes that we as parents and teachers often make, and that could stifle the mental development of our children, is to treat them as just small adults! In fact, it is this attitude of grown-ups that could be leading our next generation to become stereotyped conformists rather than original thinkers and innovators. And if we intend to drive home health messages and inculcate healthy habits we need to tailor our efforts to their cognitive potential. That children indeed think and discover the world differently was first noticed by a Swiss scientist Jean Piaget in the early 20th century. He studied his own three children grow and was intrigued by how they behaved, played games and learnt at different ages. With further observations and experiments, he propounded the theory of ‘cognitive development’, placed great importance on the education of children and is hailed even today, 30 years after his death, as a pioneer of the constructive theory of knowing.  He...
1 comment
Read more