The following are the latest statistics available from the National Center for Health Statistics, the American Liver Foundation, and the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS): - Over 26,000 people in the US die each year from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.
- Cirrhosis, a chronic liver disease, is the seventh leading disease-related cause of death in the US.
- Seventy-five to 80 percent of cases of cirrhosis could be prevented by eliminating alcohol abuse.
- Approximately 3.9 million people in the US are chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus.
- Between 8,000 and 10,000 people die of hepatitis C annually in the US. By the year 2010, the number of deaths from hepatitis C is expected to rise to 38,000 each year.
- Hepatitis B kills 5,000 people in the US annually.
- One in every 250 persons is a carrier of the hepatitis B virus.
- More than 80,000 people are newly infected with hepatitis B each year in the US.
- Chronic hepatitis B infection increases a person's chance of developing liver cancer by 100 times.
- There are approximately 22,000 pregnant women who are carriers of hepatitis B each year in the US.
- Each year, more than 500,000 surgeries to remove the gallbladder are performed in the US.
- As of December, 2001, 18,744 adults and children were waiting for a liver transplant in the US.
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