Introduction:

In Colombia, Hepatitis C virus infections have high rates of morbidity and high costs. The advent of new more effective treatments has produced a need for better knowledge of this population’s characteristics to allow their proper use.

Objectives:

The objective of this study is to describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of patients with hepatitis C at a referral center for liver diseases.

Materials and methods:

We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study of a population of adults with serological diagnoses of hepatitis C between 2011 and 2016.

Results:

We evaluated 214 clinical records of patients with confirmed serological diagnoses of hepatitis C. Their median age was 59 years, and 62% were women. The HCV genotypes of 114 patients were reported: 75% had genotype 1B. Transfusions of one or another type of blood product had been administered to 36.9% of the patients, and 5% had tattoos. The prevalence of cirrhosis was 29.4% while that of hepatocellular carcinoma was 3.3%. Hepatitis B virus coinfections were found in 1.8% of these patients, and 5.1% of the patients had human immunodeficiency virus coinfections.

Conclusion:

The determinants of hepatitis C virus infection in Cali are similar to those reported in scientific literature worldwide and requires emphasis on prevention in the at-risk population. Genotype 1b continues to be the most frequent in our environment which makes this population susceptible to new treatments.

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