Open AccessManaging HCV infection in pediatric age group: Suggested recommendations
Author(s) -
Fazal A Danish,
Salman S Koul,
Fazal R. Subhani,
Ahmed Ehsan Rabbani,
Saeeda Yasmin
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the saudi journal of gastroenterology/saudi journal of gastroenterology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.608
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1998-4049
pISSN - 1319-3767
DOI - 10.4103/1319-3767.65182
Subject(s) - medicine , intensive care medicine , hepatitis c virus , transmission (telecommunications) , disease , hepatitis c , pediatrics , immunology , virus , electrical engineering , engineering
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in children is different from the adult infection in many ways, like natural course of the disease; duration, therapeutic response and side effects profile of the drug therapy; and prognosis. Special considerations include consideration on what could be the appropriate time to investigate a suspected child, when to institute drug therapy and how to prevent vertical transmission. Although over the past one decade many landmark studies have greatly increased our insight on this subject, yet we are far from developing a consensus statement. In this article, a concise yet comprehensive review of HCV infection in children - diagnosis and treatment - is given, followed by suggested recommendations at the end. It is hoped that these recommendations will help develop local guidelines on this subject.