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Friday, October 20, 2017
News Recap:
Disease Management:
Women: Hepatitis C in pregnancy: screening, treatment, and management. Hepatitis C (HCV) during pregnancy is associated with serious, adverse outcomes. Infants born to women with HCV are more likely to experience fetal growth restriction and low birth weight. For women, chronic HCV is associated with progressive liver damage and, during pregnancy, can be transmitted from the mother to the fetus (called vertical transmission).
Extrahepatic Manifestations: Hepatitis C and the Rheumatologist. When a patient with a rheumatic disease has comorbid chronic HBV and HCV infection, numerous complex issues must be parsed to offer optimal antirheumatic therapy. While there are no accurate appraisals of how many patients are infected, it is certainly in the tens of thousands.
Reducing the Risk of Bleeds: SVR reduces hepatic venous pressure gradient, portal hypertension persists. A recent study shows that although SVR reduces the internal pressure in the liver, it does not reduce or reverse portal hypertension. This is bad news, because clinically significant portal hypertension is associated with a higher risk of hepatic decompensation, and increased risk of liver cancer.
As well, another study has shown the importance of monitoring hepatic venous pressure as a way of reducing the occurrence of variceal bleeds. The use of beta blockers is recommended for reducing portal pressure. Liver pressure has ‘come of age,’ aids management of liver disease.
Reducing the Risk of Steatosis: Cannabis May Be Protective Against Steatosis in Persons Coinfected with HIV-HCV. According to an article in the Journal of Viral Hepatitis daily cannabis use may be protective against steatosis in subjects coinfected with both HIV & HCV. Okay, but what about the munchies?
Reducing the Risk of Liver Cancer: Obesity, hepatitis C epidemics drive ‘alarming’ increase in liver cancer incidence, mortality. Be sure to check out this very interesting and thorough article on the incidence of liver cancer.
From the “This Can’t Really Be Happening Department: California Gov. Jerry Brown issued an emergency proclamation Friday that will allow the state to increase its supply of vaccines amid a hepatitis A outbreak that has killed more than a dozen people. The outbreak involves more than 570 of cases in San Diego, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles counties. In San Diego County, more that 500 people have fallen ill and 19 people have died from the liver disease since March of this year (updated stats). Gov. Brown declares state of emergency amid deadly hepatitis A outbreak.