Saludes V, González V, Planas R, Matas L, Ausina V, Martró E. Tools for the diagnosis of hepatitis C virus infection and hepatic fibrosis staging. World J Gastroenterol 2014; 20(13): 3431-3442 [PMID: 24707126 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i13.3431]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Elisa Martró, PhD, Researcher in the National Health System, Microbiology Service, Fundació Institut d’Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol, Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Ctra. del Canyet s/n, 08916 Badalona, Spain. emartro.igtp.germanstrias@gencat.cat
Research Domain of This Article
Virology
Article-Type of This Article
Topic Highlight
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Author contributions: Martró E conceived the topic; Saludes V, González V and Martró E reviewed the literature and wrote the manuscript; Planas R, Matas L and Ausina V provided overall intellectual input into the review’s topic and edited the manuscript; all authors approved the final version to be published.
Supported by A Miguel Servet contract No. MS09/00044 funded by FIS-ISCIII (Spanish Government) to Martró E; grant PI10/01734 within the “Plan Nacional de I+D+I” and co-financed by “ISCIII-Subdirección General de Evaluación y el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional” (FEDER) to González V, Saludes V, Martró E
Correspondence to: Elisa Martró, PhD, Researcher in the National Health System, Microbiology Service, Fundació Institut d’Investigació en Ciències de la Salut Germans Trias i Pujol, Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Ctra. del Canyet s/n, 08916 Badalona, Spain. emartro.igtp.germanstrias@gencat.cat
Telephone: +34-934-978894 Fax: +34-934-978895
Received: September 27, 2013 Revised: December 7, 2013 Accepted: March 6, 2014 Published online: April 7, 2014
Core Tip
Core tip: About 150 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) worldwide, making them at risk for cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and end-stage liver disease. Recent advances in hepatitis C therapy may bring the opportunity of eradicating this infection. However, ongoing HCV transmission, under-diagnosis of HCV-infected persons, and difficulties in accessing treatment remain great challenges that require public health responses. In this review, we focus on diagnostic methods used to control HCV infection, including laboratory and point-of-care tests. We also discuss available non-invasive methods to assess liver fibrosis, as the severity of liver disease has important implications in the prognosis and treatment of hepatitis C.
