Introduction:

Throughout the world hepatitis C (HepC) is a public health problem. Estimates for its prevalence in Colombia range from 0.5% to 1% but 2.1 % for patients over 50 years of age. The Hepatology Unit at the Hospital Pablo Tobón Uribe (HPTU) has been a benchmark for management of HepC in Medellín and Colombia for years.

Objective:

To describe sociodemographic and clinical characteristics together with health outcomes of patients with chronic HepC who were treated at the HPTU between 2013 and 2018.

Materials and methods:

This is an observational, descriptive and retrospective study of patients with chronic HepC, treated between January 1, 2013 and March 31, 2018.

Results:

One hundred and eight patients were analyzed. The average age was 55.8 years (SD 13.7), 51.9% were men, and 78.7% belonged to the contributory health care scheme. Most frequently, the disease was transmitted by blood, and genotype 1 predominated in the group of patients analyzed. The effectiveness of interferon schemes was 46.9% while that of Direct-Acting Antivirals (DAA) was 94.6%. Adverse drug reactions were found in 68.2% of patients treated with interferon/ribavirin schemes but in only 25.9% of the patients treated with DAA.

Conclusions:

In this group of patients treated at HPTU, DAA were safer and more effective than interferon/ribavirin schemes.

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