Hepatitis In Primary Care: What Physician Assistants Can Do To Help Save Million Of Lives

As millions of infected patients, friends and families commemorate May as hepatitis awareness month, we invite Physician Assistants to reflect on their role as frontline custodians for the health millions of people currently infected or likely to be infected by the seemingly silent epidemic of hepatitis C. Approximately 1 in 50 people in the general population are positive for HCV antibodies1, and about 1 in 20 patients seen in primary care may have acute or chronic hepatitis C2,3,4. How often do we screen patients with this debilitating chronic disease? For every diagnosis of hepatitis B or C missed, several others will be infected from the index case, many others will rapidly progress to liver disease, opportunities to start therapy early will be missed, thousands will need over $200, 000 each year for liver transplant, the waiting time for liver transplant will increase beyond the current average of 300 days, and more will die from liver cancer every day3,4. Thus identifying these patients so that they may receive the optimum treatment and education is of paramount importance.