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Hepatitis C in schizophrenia: screening experience in a community-dwelling clozapine cohort
Oliver Freudenreich1, Rajesh T Gandhi, Jared P Walsh
1Massachusetts General Hospital Schizophrenia Program, Freedom Trail Clinic, the Division of Infectious Diseases and Partners AIDS Research Center, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02114, USA. ofreudenreich@partners.org
Abstract:
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection occurs in up to 20% of patients with chronic mental illnesses. To determine the prevalence of hepatitis C in a diagnostically well-defined sample, the authors screened all schizophrenia outpatients in a clozapine clinic (N=98) for HCV antibodies. Eight patients were positive for hepatitis C antibodies (antibody-positive prevalence: 8.2%); of those, 50% had detectable viral loads (viremia-positive prevalence: 4.1%). Screening for HCV infection should be considered for outpatients with schizophrenia. However, clinical experience treating HCV in schizophrenia patients is limited; in this cohort, 2 years after screening, no patient had received interferon/ribavirin treatment.
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