Patrick Marcellin, Tarik Asselah, Nathalie Boyer – 10 February 2006 – The progression of fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C determines the ultimate prognosis and thus the need and urgency of therapy. Fibrogenesis is a complex dynamic process, which is mediated by necroinflammation and activation of stellate cells. The liver biopsy remains the gold standard to assess fibrosis. Scoring systems allow a semiquantitative assessment and are useful for cross‐sectional and cohort studies and in treatment trials. The rate at which fibrosis progresses varies markedly between patients.

Miriam J. Alter – 10 February 2006 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is transmitted by percutaneous or permucosal exposure to infectious blood or blood‐derived body fluids.

Jules L. Dienstag – 10 February 2006 – The report of the 1997 National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference on hepatitis C endorsed pretreatment liver biopsy. We revisit the following questions: Does liver histology help determine the urgency of, and predict the likelihood of response to, antiviral therapy, and can surrogate markers supplant histological assessment?

10 February 2006

Kelly A. Gebo, Geetanjali Chander, Mollie W. Jenckes, Khalil G. Ghanem, H. Franklin Herlong, Michael S. Torbenson, Samer S. El‐Kamary, Eric B. Bass – 10 February 2006 – This systematic review addresses the following questions: (1) What is the efficacy of using screening tests for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in improving outcomes in chronic hepatitis C, and (2) what are the sensitivity and specificity of screening tests for HCC in chronic hepatitis C? The search strategy involved searching Medline and other electronic databases between January 1985 and March 2002.

Maureen M. Jonas – 10 February 2006 – An estimated 240,000 children in the United States have antibody to hepatitis C virus (HCV) and 68,000 to 100,000 are chronically infected with HCV. Acute HCV infection is rarely recognized in children outside of special circumstances such as a known exposure from an HCV‐infected mother or after blood transfusion. Most chronically infected children are asymptomatic and have normal or only mildly abnormal alanine aminotransferase levels.

10 February 2006

10 February 2006

10 February 2006

10 February 2006