Chronic Hepatitis C in Saudi Arabia: Three Years Local Experience in a University Hospital

Background: chronic hepatitis c (chc) is a global infection. in saudi arabia, the prevalence of chc is declining due to the implementation of a blood screening program. however, chc still remains a leading cause of liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. objectives: this is a retrospective study of chc patients at the king abdul aziz university hospital, jeddah, saudi arabia. patients and methods: out of a total of 291 chc patients from the hepatology clinic at king abdul aziz university hospital, jeddah, 279 patients were included in the present study. they were primarily male (152, 54.5%), with a mean age of 50.41 ± 1.72 years. the majority of patients were either saudi (108, 38.7%) or egyptian (60, 21.5%). a total of 61 patients received combination treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, and one patient with sickle-cell anemia received pegylated inf monotherapy. demographic, clinical and laboratory features of the chc patients, and their responses to treatment were studied. results: decompensated cirrhosis was documented in 60 patients (21.5%), and hepatocellular carcinoma in 14 (5%). the mean level of serum alanine aminotransferase was 83.6 ± 231 u/l. the predominant genotype among the 70 patients tested, was genotype 4, followed by genotype 1 (39 and 18 patients, respectively). the sustained viral response (svr) rate was 82.99%. the main predictive factors for svr were baseline hcv viral load and rapid virologic response (rvr). the mean duration of follow-up was 4.2 ± .85 years. there were 24 patients who had liver disease-related mortality. conclusions: our data showed that 22% of chc patients progress to cirrhosis and another 22% had treatment. liver related mortality was more common in patients with advanced cirrhosis.