Disease Information

• Over 26,000 people in the US die each year from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.
• Cirrhosis is the seventh leading disease-related cause of death in the US .
• Seventy-five to eighty percent of cases of cirrhosis could be prevented by eliminating alcohol abuse .
• Approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are chronically infected with the Hepatitis C virus.
• Between 8,000 and 10,000 people die of hepatitis C annually in the US . By 2010, the number of deaths from hepatitis C is expected to rise to 38,000 each year.
• Hepatitis B kills 5,000 people in the US annually
• One in every 250 persons is a carrier of the Hepatitis B virus
• More than 200,000 people are newly infected with hepatitis B each year in the US
• Chronic Hepatitis B infection increases a person’s chance of developing liver cancer by 100 times.
• As of June 22, 2007 there 16,887 adults and children waiting for a liver transplant in the U.S.
• 25,000,000 Americans – one in every 10 – are or have been afflicted with liver and biliary diseases.
• 300,000 people are hospitalized each year due to cirrhosis.
• Alcoholic liver disease and chronic hepatitis C are the leading causes of cirrhosis.
• An estimated 25,000 people are infected with the hepatitis C virus each year.
• There are an estimated 3.9 million people who are or have been infected with hepatitis C, 2.7 of whom are chronically infected; approximately 70% of people infected do not know they have the virus.
• Up to 80,000 people are infected with the hepatitis B virus each year.
• The estimated medical and work loss cost per year of hepatitis B is $700 million; the estimated medical and work loss cost per year of hepatitis C is $600 million.
• One out of every 20 people will be infected with hepatitis B in his/her lifetime.
• Approximately 5,000 liver transplants were performed in 2000. Because of the shortage of organs, it is estimated that nearly 1,700 prospective recipients died in 2001 while waiting for a liver for transplantation.

Transplant Center