(Atlanta, Georgia) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued new recommendations for health care providers that are designed to increase routine testing for chronic hepatitis B, a major cause of liver disease and liver cancer.

The recommendations, published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Recommendations & Reports, also for the first time give health professionals guidance for effective management of chronically infected hepatitis B patients.

“Chronic hepatitis B affects the lives of more than one million Americans, many of whom do not even know they are infected. These new recommendations are critical to identifying people who are living with the disease without the benefits of medical attention,” said John W. Ward, M.D., director of CDC’s Division of Viral Hepatitis.

“Testing is the first step to identify infected persons so that they can receive lifesaving care and treatment, which can break the cycle of transmission, slow disease progression, and prevent deaths from liver cancer.”

In the United States, chronic hepatitis B is the underlying cause of an estimated 2,000 – 4,000 deaths each year from cirrhosis and liver cancer.  The CDC said the new recommendations are key to increasing the early diagnosis of chronic hepatitis B virus infection, since many of the estimated 800,000 – 1.4 million Americans with chronic HBV infection have no symptoms and are unaware of their disease.

Up to 3 percent of men who have sex with men, up to 6 percent of injection drug users are estimated to be chronically infected with HBV, compared to three tenths of one percent of the general population.

The new CDC report also gives recommendations for the referral of HBV-infected persons to specialists for ongoing monitoring and medical care.  Such guidelines are needed now to assist providers, the agency said, since most of the effective medications for chronic HBV treatment have become available only in the last five years.

In addition, the recommendations advise healthcare providers to provide culturally-sensitive ongoing patient education, begin lifelong monitoring for progression of liver disease, and ensure protection of household members and other close contacts of infected persons.