title: HCV among The Miriam Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital Adult ED Patients.
abstract: The Emergency Department (ED) appears to be an ideal place to conduct hepatitis C virus (HCV) screening. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of prior HCV test positivity among adult (18-64 year-old) patients at The Miriam Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital EDs, as well as the undiagnosed HCV antibody seroprevalence among patients with any self-reported injection or non-injection drug use who agreed to undergo rapid HCV antibody testing. The prevalence of prior HCV test positivity among 8,500 adult ED patients was approximately 4.6%, and the previously undiagnosed HCV antibody seroprevalence among 621 drug-using adult ED patients was 1.6%. Among the ten ED patients with a positive rapid HCV antibody test not previously diagnosed, eight were born after 1965 and six never had injected drugs. If current HCV screening recommendations were followed exclusively in this setting, this practice would have missed half of those with a positive rapid HCV antibody test.
authors: Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology at the Alpert Medical School and School of Public Health of Brown University and an attending physician at the Rhode Island Hospital Anderson Emergency Center.
authors: Roland C
authors: RC
authors: Merchant
authors: Assistant Professor (Research) of Emergency Medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a research psychologist at Rhode Island Hospital.
authors: Janette R
authors: JR
authors: Baird
authors: Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at the School of Public Health of Brown University.
authors: Tao
authors: T
authors: Liu
authors: Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and an HIV and viral hepatitis specialist at The Miriam Hospital Immunology Center.
authors: Lynn E
authors: LE
authors: Taylor
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D042241:Early Diagnosis; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital; D005260:Female; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012237:Rhode Island / Q000453:epidemiology; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: emergency medicine; hepatitis C; mass screening; seroepidemiologic studies; substance abuse