Hepatitis C is a viral infection that causes liver inflammation, sometimes leading to serious liver damage. The hepatitis C virus (HCV) spreads through contaminated blood.

Until recently, hepatitis C treatment required weekly injections and oral medications that many HCV-infected people couldn’t take because of other health problems or unacceptable side effects.

That’s changing. Today, chronic HCV is usually curable with oral medications taken every day for two to six months

Symptoms

Long-term infection with the hepatitis C virus is known as chronic hepatitis C. Chronic hepatitis C is usually a “silent” infection for many years, until the virus damages the liver enough to cause the signs and symptoms of liver disease.

Signs and symptoms include:

• Bleeding easily
• Bruising easily
• Fatigue
• Poor appetite
• Yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes (jaundice)
• Dark-colored urine
• Itchy skin
• Fluid buildup in your abdomen (ascites)
• Swelling in your legs
• Weight loss
• Confusion, drowsiness and slurred speech (hepatic encephalopathy)
• Spiderlike blood vessels on your skin (spider angiomas)

Every chronic hepatitis C infection starts with an acute phase. Acute hepatitis C usually goes undiagnosed because it rarely causes symptoms. When signs and symptoms are present, they may include jaundice, along with fatigue, nausea, fever and muscle aches. Acute symptoms appear one to three months after exposure to the virus and last two weeks to three months.

Acute hepatitis C infection doesn’t always become chronic. Some people clear HCV from their bodies after the acute phase, an outcome known as spontaneous viral clearance. In studies of people diagnosed with acute HCV, rates of spontaneous viral clearance have varied from 15% to 25%. Acute hepatitis C also responds well to antiviral therapy.

Risk factors

Your risk of hepatitis C infection is increased if you:

• Are a health care worker who has been exposed to infected blood, which may happen if an infected needle pierces your skin
• Have ever injected or inhaled illicit drugs
• Have HIV
• Received a piercing or tattoo in an unclean environment using unsterile equipment
• Received a blood transfusion or organ transplant before 1992
• Received clotting factor concentrates before 1987
• Received hemodialysis treatments for a long period of time
• Were born to a woman with a hepatitis C infection

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