Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Cristiane Faria de Oliveira Scarponi ¹
• Marcos Paulo Gomes Mol ¹
• Dirceu Bartolomeu Greco ²

¹ Diretoria de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento, Fundação Ezequiel Dias, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.

² Programa de Pós Graduação em Ciência da Saúde: Infectologia e Medicina Tropical, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.

Abstract

Background: Brazilian therapeutic guidelines for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were established in 2011, however data on adherence to medical practice are rare. Methods: This cross-sectional study compared the application of these guidelines to patient records from the Central Laboratory of Minas Gerais (January to June 2014). Results: Ninety HCV infected patients were assisted by 47 physicians from 33 municipalities. However, considering that 84.4% of naive treatment patients met the indication criteria to start therapy, the therapeutic guidelines were fully applied to only two patients. In contrast, 12 patients received treatment, and seven of them were treated with pegylated interferon associated with ribavirin (HCV-1 and 3 genotypes). Therapeutic response monitoring was reported in only two patients (six months after the end of treatment) and no retreatment has been reported. Conclusions: There was very little medical application to Brazilian therapeutic guidelines for HCV infection within the Public Health System. In clinical practice, these results support the idea that hepatitis C remains underdiagnosed and undertreated in Minas Gerais. There is a need to capacitate professionals to apply Clinical Protocol and Therapeutic Guidelines for Treatment of Viral Hepatitis C, aiming at both the timely indication of the treatment and laboratory follow-up of patients.

Keywords

• Adherence
• hepatitis C
• therapeutic guidelines
• clinical management
• public health
• Brazil

Main Subjects

• Clinical Epidemiology