Evaluation of spontaneous screening for HCV and HIV before and after bloodtransfusion at the Rouen University Hospital.

Introduction - Since October 1996, French hospitals have been instructed to introduce screening for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in all patients before and 3 months after each blood transfusi on. The aim of this study was to assess the degree to which this recommenda tion had been taken into account in a university hospital via a pre- and po st transfusion screening comparison. Patients and methods - A retrospective study on the use or non-use of scree ning tests for HCV and HIV was carried out in 2 groups of 150 randomly sele cted patients who had received blood transfusions in 1996 and in 1998. Results - The coverage by pre-transfusion screening tests for HCV and HIV v aried from 23% in 1996 to 20% in 1998 (not significant). The post-transfusi on screening tests were performed by the hospital in 6% of the cases in 199 6 and in 3% of the cases in 1998 involving blood transfusion. Conclusion - This study suggests that in the majority of patients, screenin g (particularly post-transfusion screening) for HCV and HIV was not carried out, and that over the 2-year period considered no noticeable improvement was observed. However, these results only concerned one hospital in which n o specific screening program had been introduced. It is therefore possible that these findings are not representative of the situation in other hospit als; further studies would be useful in this regard. (C) 2000 Editions scie ntifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.