Demographic profile of a person with symptomatic hepatitis C in Poland

UNLABELLED: In Poland high HCV prevalence was observed among people infected with HIV, injecting drug users, people dialyzed before 1998, people with hemophilia born before 1990. However the majority of cases are diagnosed outside of those groups and the incidence varies by demographic factors. In this study we aimed to distinguish demographic profiles among symptomatic cases diagnosed and reported to the surveillance system and to assess the frequency of exposures previously shown to impact HCV incidence in Poland in relation to the profiles. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We used routine HCV surveillance data collected on all cases registered in 2006: 2935 cases, including 97 (3.3%) classified as acute and 1281 (43.6%) females. The profiles were distinguished by a two stage procedure--firstly constructing 2 most important factors with principal component analysis based on demographic variables. Then cluster analysis by Ward's minimum variance was performed using these 2 factors' scores. RESULTS: 5 profiles were found: (1) young men, inhabiting villages and small towns; (2) older inhabitants of villages and small towns, frequently women; (3) young men, inhabiting large cities; (4) older women inhabiting large cities; (5) inhabitants of Warsaw. The medical exposures were the most common, but the distribution of exposures was significantly different between profiles. For example injecting drug use ever was reported by 3.4% of all cases, but was more common in clusters 3 (6.0%) and 5 (5.5%) and very rare in cluster 4 (0.9%), in which hospitalization in the past was more common (63.1%) then on average (47.2%). CONCLUSION: HCV transmission patterns in Poland vary depending on demographic factors. Our results could help target screening campaigns that ideally should pick up HCV cases before they develop chronic hepatitis symptoms.