ArticleBMC health services research2026
Lifetime medical costs of chronic hepatitis C in the United States.
Article in BMC health services research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Universal Opt-Out Hepatitis C Virus Testing and Treatment on Entry in California State Prisons.JAMA internal medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMore than 2.4 million people were estimated to have chronic hepatitis C (CHC) in the United States from 2017 to 2020. Direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy can cure hepatitis C and limit its complications, including liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study aims to estimate the lifetime medical cost burden of CHC in the United States.
methodsWe estimated the lifetime direct medical costs of CHC by disease stage, using medical and laboratory claims data and a Markov transition model. The analysis considered the cost of CHC separately for persons treated with DAAs and untreated persons. We estimated the cost of health care utilization associated with CHC per person for the initial year, remaining life years, and overall lifetimes and used these costs to estimate lifetime costs for the 2020 cohort of adults with CHC in the United States in 2020.
resultsOn average, medical costs per person in a disease stage were $89,070 (treated) and $150,669 (untreated) for non-cirrhosis, $104,961 (treated) and $197,469 (untreated) for cirrhosis, $59,120 (treated) and $208,646 (untreated) for decompensated cirrhosis, $44,876 (treated) and $113,975 (untreated) for hepatocellular carcinoma. The overall per person lifetime medical cost (weighted by the percentage of newly reported cases in each disease stage) was $90,089 (treated) and $155,930 (untreated). For a cohort of 2.228 million people, the projected total medical cost burden of CHC in 2022 dollars would be $200 billion if all were treated using DAAs, compared to $347 billion if all were untreated.
conclusionsWe found a substantial reduction in the overall lifetime medical costs of hepatitis C for persons treated with DAAs compared to untreated persons. These potential health care savings from expanded hepatitis C treatment underscore the importance of expanding HCV testing and DAA treatment as core components of the national strategy for hepatitis C elimination.
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