this issue of The Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology Myers et al ( pages 381-387) have documented a reliable upsurge in hospital costs from the management of chronic hepatitis C. and costs of medicine. These data are in keeping with the notion which the morbidity connected with hepatitis C is normally rising. It has been tough to measure although there are data recommending which the mortality from hepatitis C is normally rising so that it would not end up being surprising to discover increasing morbidity. For instance in 1979 the age-standardized mortality price related to nona non-B hepatitis (generally hepatitis C) was 0.12 within a people of 100 R 278474 0 however in 1997 the mortality price was 0.41 within a populace of 100 0 (1). Two important points circulation from the study by Myers et al. First as with any illness requiring hospitalization the costs are likely to be considerable. R 278474 In this regard the bigger query is definitely whether hepatitis C is definitely more expensive than some other chronic illness. Patients who pass away from hepatitis C-related conditions do not accrue costs related to terminal care of other diseases. Consequently to determine whether caring for a patient with chronic hepatitis C costs more than caring for individuals with diseases such as diabetes hypercholesterolemia or any additional chronic disease that eventually causes death requires a control group that does not possess hepatitis C. This information is not yet available. The second major point would be that the occurrence of complications as well as the mortality price linked R 278474 to hepatitis C could be rising quicker than forecasted. Zou et al (2) forecasted a doubling of these outcomes over the period from 1998 to 2008. In this problem Myers et al find the rates have improved fourfold on the decade of their study. Remis et al (3) have also predicted more or less a doubling of hepatitis C-related complications over R 278474 the next one to two decades. The analyses do not take into account the effects of treatment. Hepatitis C is definitely a disease that is both preventable and treatable. Thus the increase in mortality rates and the increase in costs are theoretically preventable. Current therapy can under ideal conditions cure approximately 50% of all infected individuals. Because the current treatment has been available for five to six years one query to ask is definitely – why are we not seeing a decrease in R 278474 morbidity (reflected as decreasing hospital costs)? Hepatitis C offers slipped out of the national limelight in the recent past. Although this is an important disease in the 1990s general public attention was focused on it for the wrong reasons. Hepatitis C hit the headlines because of the issue of compensation for those who acquired hepatitis C from transfusion of blood and blood products. The individual- and media-driven furor and the producing political reaction on the ensuing KITH_HHV1 antibody years cost the Canadian taxpayers more than $2 billion to provide compensation. One could argue that transfusion was a life-saving process in many if not most instances. Hepatitis C was a recognized unpreventable complication of transfusion in those days (known then as post-transfusion or non-A non-B hepatitis) just as myocardial infarction is definitely a recognized and often unpreventable complication of coronary revascularization methods. Why then should individuals who contracted hepatitis C become compensated? Although the Red Cross may have been sluggish to safeguard the blood supply against HIV they acted immediately to protect the blood supply against hepatitis C by introducing hepatitis C screening of donor blood as soon as the test became obtainable. The debate revolved around whether ala-nine aminotransferase examining of donated bloodstream in Canada could have decreased the chance of post-transfusion hepatitis since it did in the us. There have been valid arguments for why this may not really be the entire case; including the price of post-transfusion hepatitis in Canada was lower than in the us and measures to safeguard the bloodstream pool against HIV acquired decreased the chance of post-transfusion hepatitis in Canada even more. It eventually transpired that alanine aminotransferase examining would have decreased the post-transfusion hepatitis price but these R 278474 details only became obtainable after anti-hepatitis C.