Universal hepatitis C screening in genitourinary medicine

Our genitourinary (GU) medicine service currently offers all attendees hepatitis C testing, regardless of risk factors. We carried out a retrospective case-note review of all cases of hepatitis C diagnosed in 2008 to determine whether a significant number of these cases would have been missed if screening was targeted at high-risk groups. Twenty-three cases of hepatitis C were diagnosed from approximately 30,000 screening tests, of which 19 were available for study. In all, 53% (10/19) were polymerase chain reaction-negative resolved infection and 47% (9/19) were chronic active hepatitis. All cases of infection had identifiable risk factors for infection with hepatitis C. We are now changing our guidelines to screen only those with identifiable risk factors.