About the Authors

Barbara Bertisch

Contributed equally to this work with: Barbara Bertisch, Fabio Giudici

barbara.bertisch@ispm.unibe.ch

Affiliations Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Bern, Switzerland, Checkpoint Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Fabio Giudici

Contributed equally to this work with: Barbara Bertisch, Fabio Giudici

Affiliation Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Bern, Switzerland

Francesco Negro

Affiliation Divisions of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and of Clinical Pathology, University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland

Darius Moradpour

Affiliation Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Beat Müllhaupt

Affiliation Swiss Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Center and Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland

Alberto Moriggia

Affiliation Epatocentro Ticino Foundation, Lugano, Switzerland

Janne Estill

Affiliation Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Bern, Switzerland

Olivia Keiser

Affiliation Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Bern, Switzerland

Swiss Hepatitis C Cohort Study

Membership of the Swiss Hepatitis C Cohort Study is provided in the Acknowledgments.

Competing Interests

The authors have the following interests: This work was supported in part by unrestricted grants to the Swiss Hepatitis C Cohort Study Foundation by AbbVie, Gilead, BMS, Janssen, MSD, Novartis and Roche. Barbara Bertisch has served as consultant for Janssen and BMS, has received research and/or travel grants from Gilead, BMS and ViiV and honoraria for speaking at a meeting from BMS and Gilead. Francesco Negro has served as advisor for MSD, Gilead, BMS and AbbVie and has unrestricted research grants from Gilead. Darius Moradpour has served as an advisory board member for AbbVie, BMS, Gilead, Janssen, MSD and Roche and has received research and/or travel grants from BMS, Gilead, MS and Roche. Beat Müllhaupt has served as an advisory board member for Roche, MSD, Janssen, AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Gilead and BMS; as consultant for Gilead and AbbVie; and has received research grants from Roche and Gilead. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This did not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: BB OK. Performed the experiments: BB OK. Analyzed the data: FG JE. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: FN DM BM AM. Wrote the paper: BB OK FG JE FN DM BM AM.