As many as 1.2 million people in the United States are living with
hepatitis B, but up to two-thirds of them don’t know they are infected,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
WEST ORANGE — A Chinese
immigrant in his late 70s came to Su Wang, an internist at Saint
Barnabas Medical Center, because he had no appetite and was losing
weight.
A doctor back in China told him he was a carrier for hepatitis B
several years ago, but that he didn’t need monitoring or treatment.
A CT scan revealed a 13-centimeter lesion, about 5 inches long, in
his liver that was too big to be removed or treated. Had the man’s
hepatitis B been monitored regularly, he could have been medicated to
prevent the liver cancer and he wouldn’t be facing a terminal diagnosis,
Wang said.
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Labels: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), awareness, screening, US epidemiology