Associating conditional cash transfer to universal access to treatment could be the solution to the HCV epidemic among drug users (DUs).

Background: To understand the limits of HCV screening programs to reach all drug users (DUs).

Method: The association of the recruitment of a representative sample of a population of DUs in a specific area with the use of a questionnaire that included 250 items allowed the use of uni- and multifactorial analysis to explore the relationship between HCV screening and dimensions until now restricted to qualitative studies.

Results: We recruited, in less than 2 months, 327 DUs representing about 6% of the total population of DUs.

Earlier onset and poor prognosis of lung cancer in imprisoned patients.

Introduction: Prison inmates are known to be more exposed to various lung cancer risk factors, and some studies have shown that lung cancer is the most common cancer in prisoners. However, no study has particularly focused on lung cancer features in this population.

Method: Charts of patients with lung cancer hospitalized in one of the French secured hospital units between 1997 and 2012 were reviewed.

A French prospective observational study of the treatment of chronic hepatitis C in drug abusers.

The objective of this prospective, multicenter, observational study was to evaluate healthcare for hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected drug abusers in France and to determine predictors of successful therapeutic intervention. A total of 170 drug users were recruited from 40 French centers. Three centers recruited 66 participants (38.

[Alcohol, steatohepatitis, insulin resistance and hepatitis C].

Patients with chronic hepatitis C have frequently other morbidities, either because they are frequent in the general population (metabolic syndrome) and/or because the route of contamination (chronic alcohol consumption succeeding to drug abuse). These co-morbidities have a harmfull impact on fibrosis progression during the natural history of HCV infection and reduce the efficacy of antiviral treatments. Thus, it is crucial to diagnose early and treat these different diseases which may be combined.

[Management of drug addiction in France (a short history)].

A brief history of drug addiction in France can be garnered from a combination of the fragmented testimonies of physicians, social scientists, drug users, and of the OFDT reports edited since the middle of the nineties. It shows a tremendous evolution in the nature of drugs abused and the number of addicts, taking place in less than fifty years, from a small number of opiate addicts restricted to the major French ports to two separate drug scenes (urban and festive) accounting for several hundred thousand people. Those two scenes have shown a tendency to merge following the unification of drug trafficking.