[Acute hepatitis C virus infection].
Acute hepatitis C virus infection produces clinical and biochemical features that is non-specific and indistinguishable from those caused by other hepatotropic viruses. The specific diagnosis of acute hepatitis C virus infection is based on the detection of serum RNA-HCV through a technique of PCR whose result will be positive after 1-2 weeks of the initial contact with the virus. The anti-bodies against HCV are detected later (after 7-8 weeks on average), and are not useful, as an isolated determination, in distinguishing acute infection from chronic infection or in clearing the virus (spontaneous or following treatment). Fifty-five to eighty-five percent of patients with acute HCV infection do not clear the virus and develop a chronic infection with risk of evolution to cirrhosis and of developing hepatocellular carcinoma. For this reason, the present tendency is to treat with interferon all those patients in whom RNA-HCV remains positive after 3-4 months following diagnosis of acute infection
Martínez Echeverría
A
A
Servicio de Aparato Digestivo, Hospital García Orcoyen, 31200 Estella, Navarra, Spain.
Rodríguez Gutiérrez
C
C
Elizalde
I
I
Zozaya
J M
JM
D000208:Acute Disease; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy; D006801:Humans; D011379:Prognosis
Infección aguda por el VHC.