Acute Hepatitis : treatment

What are your chances of having undetectable loads of the virus if you begin treatment for Hep C during the acute phase of the disease?

[FlGuy]

Probably pretty high if the patient being treated doesn't have hcv.  What are the ast/alt levls?

[concernedfriend582]

Sorry I should have been more specific, A friend of mine may have tested positive for HCV antibodies, she is low risk except she was sexually assaulted in Dec 08. We are still waiting on the results of the second test (They said her results were "inconclusive", does that translate to weakly positive? Sadly she didn't ask about specific numbers).

I am curious if the second test DOES come back positive, since if she does have it it must be in its acute phase (she tested negative in November 08) what the chances she has for a full recovery are with she begins HCV treatment?

[Bill1954]

While HCV isn’t typically transmitted via intercourse, I believe that there have been documented cases of this occurring when trauma is present. Sorry to hear about your friend; we have a member here that has a very similar story.

Hopefully, the doctor ordered an HCV RNA test; this will test directly for the presence of virus, rather than antibodies. If the RNA test results are positive, she will want to treat for the virus; I believe if treatment commences during the acute phase, the odds of clearing the virus long term are greatly increased; I don’t have the percentages for this offhand, though. I hope this isn’t necessary, and the results are negative.

Is this patient in the care of a qualified hepatologist at this point? A primary care doctor probably isn’t qualified to provide care; this is a very specialized field, without many signposts.  Best of luck to all--


Bill