Volume 67 Number 5&6 October & November 2000	back to contents

The Impact of Hepatitis C Virus Infection on Methadone Maintenance Treatment	437-443
David M. Novick, M.D.
Address correspondence to David M. Novick, M.D., Digestive Specialists, Inc., 999 Brubaker Drive, Kettering, OH 45429. Supported in part by National Institute on Drug Abuse Treatment Research Center, Grant No. 1P50-DA0513 and a grant from the Herbert and Nell Singer Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Communal Fund, New York, NY.

ABSTRACT
Hepatitis C virus infection is now recognized as a common and serious complication of injection drug use and will be encountered frequently in methadone maintenance patients. Approximately 1.8% of the United States population, or 3.9 million persons, are infected with hepatitis C virus. A majority of acute hepatitis C virus infections are associated with injection drug use, and 64–88% of injection drug users in seroprevalence studies have antibodies to hepatitis C. Hepatitis C virus infection is almost always chronic, and alcohol use increases the clinical severity. Therapy with interferon and ribavirin will induce long-term remission in up to 43% of patients with hepatitis C virus infection. Proper diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis C virus infection will be indicated for many patients in methadone programs and will require considerable resources.

KEY WORDS
Hepatitis C, methadone; heroin, injection drug use, alcoholism, epidemiology

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