Screening for Hepatitis C
Screening for hepatitis C should be considered in patients who are at risk for infection or who have known exposure (Table 1). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Prevention Services Task Force recommends one-time screening for people born between 1945 and 1965 because of the high rate of undiagnosed infection in this population who may have been exposed before universal precautions were implemented and do not recall or report risk factors to their primary care providers. Screening patients with risk factors for hepatitis C has a sensitivity of 90%, with a number needed to screen to identify one case of hepatitis C of <20.