Major Finding: Of the estimated 12,000 Florida children infected with hepatitis C, 14% have been diagnosed and 1% have been treated.
Data Source: The third NHANES and the Florida Merlin database.
Disclosures: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institutes of Health funded the study. Dr. Delgado-Borrego said she had no relevant financial disclosures.
NEW ORLEANS — Only a small fraction of Florida children with hepatitis C—about 14%—have been identified, and the situation may be even worse in other parts of the United States, a study has shown.
The projection is based on data from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which indicate that hepatitis C affects 0.2%–0.4% of the pediatric population.
Extrapolating that number to the Florida population, the state should have 12,155 cases of pediatric hepatitis C, said Dr. Aymin Delgado-Borrego.
Yet the state's database, which is called Merlin, contained 1,755 pediatric cases—just 14% of the expected number.
In contrast, the Merlin database has recorded more than 46% of the state's projected number of adult cases.
Further analysis suggested that 150 children—1.2% of the expected number of those infected—are being treated for their infection.
“Most children never have symptoms, or have nonspecific symptoms that don't help in the recognition of the infection,” said Dr. Delgado-Borrego, a pediatric gastroenterologist at the University of Miami.
Pediatric hepatitis C needs to be on the screening radar, especially for at-risk children whose mothers are infected.
Cases need to be referred to a specialist as soon as they're identified, she emphasized.
“Early identification of pediatric hepatitis C infection would likely help us cure the infection in more than 50% of children who currently have it,” she said.
This would limit the spread of disease and “would save children from liver damage as well as possible liver failure, cancer, and even death,” according to the pediatric gastroenterologist.
Dr. Delgado-Borrego and her colleagues examined the incidence of pediatric hepatitis C infection in Florida because its database, Merlin, registered every reported case of hepatitis C in the state from 2000 to 2008.
“Our preliminary analysis of national data shows that this percentage may be even much lower for the nation as a whole,” she said.
Although the investigators have not completed their analysis, the data they have gathered so far indicate that only 5% of children in the entire country who have hepatitis C have been identified.
“We have a few states yet that we need to look at, so this number has not been confirmed,” she said.
“But we estimate that among those who have been identified with hepatitis C, the percentage of those getting medical care is also unacceptably low,” Dr. Delgado-Borrego noted.