Theme: Epidemiology & Public Health Research Year: 2018
Background: In Canada, most incident cases of hepatitis C (HCV) occur in those engaged in high risk activities including injection drug use (IDU). Many cases occur in youth (age < 30 years); however limited data exists regarding characteristics and outcomes related to HCV in this cohort since they are less likely to be in stable recovery or are newly infected and not accessing HCV care. Methods: The Canadian Network on Hepatitis C (CanHepC) retrospective registry has combined data on patients with chronic HCV assessed in academic and community sites across Canada. Youth were classified as those < 30 years at baseline. Those with no data regarding age were excluded. Basic means and proportions were calculated for those under and over 30 years with comparisons between the groups made with Fisher’s Exact and t-tests, as appropriate. Results: Of the 2,658 individuals from 10 centres in 7 Canadian provinces, age was available for 88.2% (n=2,371), of which 8.5% (n=201) were under the age of 30 years (range 18.0-29.6 years). The New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec sites contributed 89.6% of youth cases. In contrast to those over 30 years, youth were more likely to be current IDUs (27.1% vs. 13.5%, p
Download abstract Download Poster