Stage 3 Hepatitis C

Is stage 3 Hepatitis C the final stage and, if so, what is the prognosis at that stage; particularly life expectancy and quality of life.

[Trinity4]

Stage 3 indicates you have advanced fibrosis.  Stage 4 is cirrhosis.  
Stage 3 means the train is coming closer to the end of the track (which is cirrhosis) but it can move very slowly or very quickly depending on many factors such as lifestyle, alcohol intakes, drug use....Advise you start treatment ASAP.  If you eradicate the disease you will not have to concern yourself about life expectancy because you will be cured.  No worry of further liver damage progression.  I am a stage 3 and never knew I had the disease so my quality of life was excellent prior to diagnosis and beginning the treatment.   Life exectancy, there is not way anyone can provide that information.  We don't have crystal balls nor would a specialist be able to speculate on that even if you choose not treat and your liver disease progresses to end stage.  
Good Luck
Trinity

[Proactive]

There are no "stages" of hepatitis c, liver damage which could be the result of hepatitis c is staged(scored)..Sometimes the viral load (amount of hep c virons in the bloodstream) is "ranged" on a scale of low, med,high..pro

[nygirl7]

i'm a stage 3 who successfully treated and expects to live a long happy healthy life.  

It's not the end of the road and you have plenty of good reasons to begin treatment now so that you don't end up with cirrhosis.  But even if you do end up with cirrhosis, life it not over and there are options available.

Still.......you don't to get to that point and should consider seriously, finding a good hep specialist and take care of this now while you can.

[eureka254]

Hep C is a virus that may be assigned a "genotype" number, but the virus itself is not measured by 'stage.'  

Liver damage (best assessed by a liver biopsy) is usually measured in terms of Stage and Grade, as pointed out above:  "Stage" usually refers to the degree of scarring/tissue damage (0 is none, 1-3 are measures of scarring, or fibrosis, and stage 4 is significant scarring called 'cirrhosis'), and "Grade" refers to the amount of inflammation.  

In addition, Stage 4 cirrhosis is also measured and scored (sometimes referred to as "cirrhosis stages A,B, and C," but sometimes referred to as "cirrhosis stages 1, 2, and 3").  Your statement is a bit unclear to me, but I hope you do not have cirrhosis, and would therefore not be in "final stage."  Best wishes.

~eureka

[jodi235]

my mom has stage 3 hep c and stage 4 cirrosis (cirrhosis) of the liver. what do i need to know? they gave  her 5 - 6 yrs  to live. please give me some info. i would rather hear from someone who has the same diagnosis or knows alot about it. thanks so much
                            from a concerned and scared daughter

[Bill1954]

Hi Jodi,

You tagged on to an old post that was started in 2008. Try reposting your question by scrolling to the top of the page, and clicking on the ‘post question’ button. This will start a new thread so you’ll be seen better, and hopefully get more information—

Bill

[Emeraldsapphire]

This is incorrect - my brother has hep c and is definitively  measured by stage III, grade III genotype 1a.  I am a nurse administrator, and see the staging of hep c used in all cases.

[willbb]

What part of Eureka"s post  do you propose is incorrect??

Will