— Christine M. Kukka, Project Manager, HBV Advocate
A new study that examined how many people in the United States have
severe liver scarring–often resulting from hepatitis B and C
infection–finds the figure is 50% higher than epidemiologists earlier
predicted.
According to the study published recently in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterolgy, more than 600,000 people have cirrhosis, approximately 200,000 more than previously estimated.
Researchers from Loyola University Medical Center
estimated the true prevalence using data from the National Health and
Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2010. They
determined:
- About 0.27% or 633,323 adults in the U.S. had cirrhosis.
- 69% were unaware they had liver disease.
- Cirrhosis rates were higher among African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, poor people and those with less education.
- Viral hepatitis, diabetes and heavy alcohol consumption accounted for 53.5% of the cases.
- There was a 26.4% death rate every two years among those with cirrhosis.
While the estimate exceeded the earlier 400,000
figure, researchers asserted the 633,323 estimate was probably low
because many poor people, immigrants and prisoners are not included in
NHANES surveys.
Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25291348
http://www.hbvadvocate.org/news/HBJ12.4.htm
Labels: cirrhosis, statistics
