Kouroumalis E, Voumvouraki A. Hepatitis C virus: A critical approach to who really needs treatment. World J Hepatol 2022; 14(1): 1-44 [PMID: 35126838 DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i1.1]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Elias Kouroumalis, MD, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, University of Crete Medical School, Voutes, Heraklion 71500, Crete, Greece. kouroumi@uoc.gr
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Hepatol. Jan 27, 2022; 14(1): 1-44 Published online Jan 27, 2022. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i1.1
Hepatitis C virus: A critical approach to who really needs treatment
Elias Kouroumalis, Argyro Voumvouraki
Elias Kouroumalis, Department of Gastroenterology, University of Crete Medical School, Heraklion 71500, Crete, Greece
Argyro Voumvouraki, First Department of Internal Medicine, AHEPA University Hospital, Thessaloniki 54621, Greece
Author contributions: Kouroumalis E devised the paper, wrote the draft and reviewed the literature; Voumvouraki A collected the literature and finalized the draft.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Elias Kouroumalis, MD, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, University of Crete Medical School, Voutes, Heraklion 71500, Crete, Greece. kouroumi@uoc.gr
Received: February 8, 2021 Peer-review started: February 8, 2021 First decision: March 29, 2021 Revised: April 14, 2021 Accepted: December 31, 2021 Article in press: December 31, 2021 Published online: January 27, 2022 Processing time: 347 Days and 0.8 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Elimination of hepatitis C virus (HCV) by 2030 according to the World Health Organization policy seems highly unlikely because of the funding re-direction due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. It is important therefore to re-evaluate the treatment policies based on a more realistic and feasible approach. HCV disease has a very prolonged natural course, and even HCV-related cirrhosis has a lower mortality compared to other cirrhosis etiologies. However, liver related morbidity and mortality is increased when certain comorbidities accompany the initial HCV infection. A review of the current knowledge allows for a more or less accurate identification of these comorbidities. Therefore, an eradication program is proposed based on screening and treating only these particular groups.
