Cristina Stasi
Regional Health Agency of Tuscany, Italy
Title: An attempt to calculate the prevalence of chronic hepatitis C infection in Tuscany using administrative data
Biography
Biography: Cristina Stasi
Abstract
Introduction. Ansaldi et al. (2005) showed an anti-Hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibody prevalence of 2.7% in the Italian population. Aim of this study was to evaluate this prevalence in Tuscan population that was know and unknown to the Tuscan Regional Health Service in 2014. Methods. To evaluate people infected with HCV known to the Regional Health Service we used the Tuscany Health administrative data. We identified people with a Hepatitis C exention code (070.54), resident in Tuscany. Through the universal code attribuited to each resident, these patients were matched with hospital admission codes, identified by the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) Clinical Modification (such as “acute hepatitis” ICD9-CM: 070.41 and 070.51; “chronic hepatitis” 070.44 and 070.54; “hepatocellular carcinoma” 155.0; “cirrhosis” 571.5), with codes for dispensing drugs to patients by local and hospital pharmacies (Ribavirin J05AB04). Individuals were considered only once. To evaluate HCV population unknown to Regional Health Service we used the Capture-Recapture analysis.
Results. Living people as at 12.31.2014 with HCV exention codes were 14.810. Patients treated with Pegilated interferon+Ribavirin in the last 10 years were 6635. The total hospital admission in the last 15 years was 18,773. After data linkage the total number was 29.437.
After applying the Capture-Recapture analysis the number of unkown HCV infected people was 29.963. Therefore the total number of chronic HCV infected people was 56,940.
Conclusion. Tuscan administrative data were in line with the serological prevalence of some research studies and they outlined the high prevalence of chronic HCV infection.