Demographic, clinical, and biological characteristics of acute hepatitis C patients with and without follow-up, Cairo, 2002–6 (n = 160).

1Patients with probable acute hepatitis C were all in the group with follow-up since ascertainment of cases required follow-up to perform additional serological and PCR investigations (see Patients and Methods). As a result, patients with follow-up had higher median ALT level when compared to those without follow-up since the definition of probable acute hepatitis C included ALT>10 times the ULN.2Two missing values for bilirubin