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Introduction and Objectives: International studies have described an epidemiological change in patients with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), with greater involvement of young people and risk groups. The reality in Latin America, particularly in Chile, is unknown. This study aimed to epidemiologically characterize HCV patients treated in the Chilean public health system (period 2016-2021) and compare these characteristics in two periods (2016 - 2019 vs. 2020 - 2021). Materials and Methods: Historical cohort was constructed based on national data and the Hospital del Salvador registry (Santiago, Chile) (n=410). All patients diagnosed with HCV treated in the Chilean public system (2016-2019) and those treated at Hospital del Salvador (2020-2021 period) were included. It was registered: year of diagnosis, age, sex, presence of cirrhosis, HCV genotype, co-infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and/or HIV, need for a liver transplant, or intratreatment dead. Both periods were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test or Fisher's exact test, as appropriate. Results: 61.2% of patients were male, with a median age of 57 years. 73.5% presented genotype 1 and 11.6% genotype 4. There was a 19.3% coinfection with HIV. Only 1.4% had therapy failure at 24 weeks and 5.2% of patients underwent liver transplantation. When comparing the periods 2016 – 2019 vs. 2020 – 2021 a reduction in the median age 59 vs 49 (p

Introduction and Objectives: There are 71 million infected in the world and approximately 4 million in Latin America. In Chile, it is estimated that there are approximately 35-50 thousand infected, of which less than 10% have been identified and treated. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of anti-HCV in patients at high risk of infection using a rapid test for HCV. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional and descriptive study, which examined 502 samples of capillary blood from patients of the Hospital del Salvador, based on risk factors for Hepatitis C. The commercial Montebio HCV test was used, which reports a sensitivity and specificity of 99%. Results: Of the total of 502 samples, 52.9% (266) corresponded to women. The average age was 51.5 years; the main risk factor was being older than 45 years (45.8%, 230/502), followed by being exposed to health personnel (34.5%, 173/502). 99.4% of the tests were validly performed. The positivity was 0.59% (3/502). Conclusions: The implementation of a rapid test as screening is a useful and cost-effective tool in populations with risk factors. In the population studied, there is a higher prevalence than that reported in other series.

Introduction: Transient elastography (TE) is a non-invasive method for the evaluation of liver fibrosis. Up to 20% of measurements fail, possibly due to the choice of probe position. Objectives: To evaluate the use of ultrasound as a position guide (UPG) prior to TE to improve the measurement of liver stiffness (LS). Methods: Prospective study of 237 patients (age 54 ± 14 years, 69% women) referred for TE (FibroScan, Echosens). The main indication was non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (52.3%). 65.4% of the patients were overweight or obese. LS was measured in each patient according to the manufacturer's recommendations and at the same appointment, in UPG. Fibrosis staging sections recommended by the manufacturer were used. Statistical analyzes performed with chi-square and t-test (p