Co-occurring Hepatitis C, substance use, and psychiatric illness: treatment issues and developing integrated models of care.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is transmitted by injection drug use and associated with psychiatric conditions. Patients with drug use or significant psychiatric illness have typically been excluded from HCV treatment trials noting the 1997 National Institutes of Health Consensus Statement on HCV that indicated active drug use and major depressive illness were contraindications to treatment of HCV infection. However, the 2002 NIH Consensus Statement recognized that these patients could be effectively treated for HCV infection and recommended that treatment be considered on a case-by-case basis.