M.J. Alter, H.S. Margolis,K. Krawczynski, F.N. Judson, A. Mares, W.J. Alexander, P.Y. Hu, J.K. Miller, M.A. Gerber, R.E. Sampliner, E.L. Meeks, M.J. Beach, "The natural history of community acquired hepatitis-C in the United States," New England Journal of Medicine, 327:1899-1905, 1992. (Total citations through October 1994: 76)

This paper reports the results of a study tracking the onset and course of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in patients over a four- to six-year period.

"We looked at the natural history of the disease--namely what happens over time with respect to infection and clinical symptoms," says Miriam Alter, chief of the epidemiology section of the hepatitis branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. "We found that 62 percent of the patients developed chronic hepatitis and that all of them remained persistently infected even in the absence of liver disease or inflammation."

From an epidemiological perspective,...

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