What Does the Hepatitis C Virus Do?
Hepatitis simply means an inflammatory process in the liver and can be caused by chemicals, drugs or viruses. After blood transfusions prior to 1990 when hepatitis C testing began, about 10% of individuals, if followed carefully, would have liver enzyme abnormalities at some point as evidence of hepatitis. AST, (SGOT) and ALT (SGPT) or “transaminases” are all names for liver enzymes released into the blood with liver cell damage, and these enzyme tests provide a rough guide to the amount of hepatitis occurring at any one point in time. In some patients, these elevated enzymes will resolve in less than six months. Those who do not resolve their illness in six months make up about 85-90% of those infected, and these patients remain infected with the hepatitis C virus for years with inflammation continuing indefinitely. Therefore, prior to the recently instituted screening tests, approximately 5-10% of transfused patients on average developed chronic hepatitis C. What is Hepatitis C Like?
