Hepatitis C virus infection among patients on hemodialysis in jeddah: a single center experience.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the hemodialysis (HD) population in Jeddah and its risk factors. We studied 248 patients on HD in the Jeddah Kidney Center, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The overall prevalence of HCV among these patients was 72.6%. Hepatitis C positive males (77.2%) were more than hepatitis C positive females (65.7%) (p< 0.05). A significantly increasing annual prevalence of HCV infection among HD patients was found. It ranged from 16.4% among patients who were on HD for one year to 94.5% among those on HD for three or more years (p< 0.05). Also, 78% of those who utilized more than one center acquired HCV infection compared to 64.3% of those who were treated exclusively at the Jeddah Kidney Center, (p< 0.05). In this study, 75.8% of HCV positive patients had received blood transfusions while 61.1% of HCV positive patients had never received blood transfusion, (p< 0.05).