Abstract
The following study was conducted to determine the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among local veteran patients. We used an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) (Abbott Diagnostics HCV, Abbott Park, III) to test sera from 323 patients; 203 samples were from patients with abnormal liver function (ALF) and 120 were from patients with normal liver function (NLF). Positive test results were obtained from 22 % of the patients with ALF and from 8% of those with NLF. Two to 3 months after the initial analysis, 11 of the 120 patients with NLF had ALF test results, including 4 of the 10 (40%) patients who originally tested HCV-positive by EIA. These data demonstrate that a significant percentage of local veterans have been exposed to HCV.
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