Estudio epidemiológico retrospectivo de 10 años de los enfermos con Virus C atendidos en el Servicio de Medicina Digestiva del Hospital Clínico universitario de Valencia

Introduction: Hepatitis C is a global disease and a serious Public Health problem worldwide. This virus has a quick replication, which explains the persistence of the infection. The 85% of infected people become chronic. This percentage depends on several factors such as: age, sex, ethnicity, co-infection with other viruses and even the immune response. Objectives: To know through a retrospective epidemiological study the clinical and biological characteristics of patients who attend the outpatient clinic at the Hepatology Department of the University Hospital Clinic in Valencia, to observe the changes in these characteristics, how age and sex affect, what the determining factors to start treatment are and how fibrosis evolves in our population. Material and methods: Retrospective observational epidemiological study in which the data collected from clinical history and own databases are analyzed, in a period between January 2006 and December 2016, so as to be able to establish association relationships, ruling out those patients who had been admitted to the Hospitalization Unit without subsequent control in outpatient clinic or those who only attended the first clinic visit and because they did not attend a second one, it was possible neither to complete the study nor to know associated data. Results: There is a clear predominance of advanced forms of liver injury and a greater presence of comorbidities in older ages. Regarding the treatment received, only 17.7% of patients older than 61 years have undergone treatment with IFN, and it has been seen that age, presence of cirrhosis and presence of comorbidities at baseline is decisive for receiving treatment and obtaining a SVR. Survival of HCV patients is conditioned by older age, presence of basal cirrhosis and absence of SVR after IFN treatment. Conclusion: There have been no changes in the characteristics of the patients who were controlled during 10 years. The basal age of the patients is relevant to the stage of liver fibrosis. The absence of cirrhosis is the most relevant factor to indicate INF therapy, the response to treatment being the one that conditions the improvement of fibrosis, becoming an independent predictive factor in the regression of liver fibrosis.