Anna Levinsson, Camille Zolopa, Farzaneh Vakili, Sasha Udhesister, Nadine Kronfli, Mathieu Maheu-Giroux, Julie Bruneau, Heather Valerio, Sahar Bajis, Phillip Read, Elisa Martró, Lisa Boucher, Leith Morris, Jason Grebely, Adelina Artenie, Jack Stone, Peter Vickerman, Sarah Larney
BACKGROUND: People who inject drugs (PWID) are a priority population in HCV elimination programming. Overcoming sex and gender disparities in HCV risk, prevention, and the cascade of care is likely to be important to achieving this goal, but these have not yet been comprehensively reviewed. METHODS: Systematic review and meta-analysis. We searched Pubmed, EMBASE and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 1 January 2012-22 January 2024 for studies of any design reporting sex or gender differences among PWID in at least one of: sharing of needles and/or syringes, incarceration history, injection while incarcerated, participation in opioid agonist treatment or needle and syringe programs, HCV testing, spontaneous HCV clearance, direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment initiation or completion, and sustained virological response (SVR)...
June 2024: EClinicalMedicine