Hepatitis C Virus Prevalence among Patients Infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the US Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has emerged as an important etiologic agent of liver injury and failure in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The prevalence and characteristics of HCV in a representative cohort of HIV-infected patients have not been described. Therefore, a representative sample of 1687 HIV-infected patients was studied; a 213-sample subcohort was selected by use of risk-based sampling from 2 large prospective US Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group clinical trials. HCV prevalence, HCV RNA level, and genotype were determined. The weighted overall estimate of HCV prevalence in the study cohort was 16.1% (95% weighted confidence interval, 14.3%-17.8%), with significant variability depending on risk factors and HIV RNA levels. Among patients defined as being "at risk", 72.7% were HCV positive, whereas, among low-risk patients, the positivity rate was 3.5%. Genotype 1 was found in 83.3% of infected patients. Median HCV RNA level was 6.08x106 IU/mL. High virus loads and genotype 1 prevalence may be important to interferon-based antiviral response rates among coinfected patients.