Stages

[ca-girl]

What are the stages of HCV genotype 1b?  I've been told I'm in stage 2.  What does that mean?

[FloridaMouse]

basically there are 4 stages of HCV.  1 being minimal damage 4 being the most severe.  Stage 2 is pretty decent.

Mouse
Genotype 1a, Stage 3, Grade 3
Finished 48 wks of tx on 4/13/07
waiting on resulst of SVR PCR taken 9/20/07

[Andiamo1]

Stage is a measure of the amount of fibrosis scaring in your liver.  There are 4 stages and each stage is a range of damage.  Stage 4 is cirrhosis and there are variants of that: you can have compensated cirrhosis or decompensated cirrhosis.

Stage 2 is not as worrisome as stage 3, obviously, but stage 0 is normal and anything higher means the disease is scarring your liver and needs to be closely watched.  

How long do you think you have the disease?  It is a good idea to try and estimate how slowly your disease is progressing.

I am not a doctor; you should really discuss this with a hepatologist to get the entire picture.

[charm27]

This is how it was exlained to me not long ago and it helped me :

Stage 1-Inflammation
Stage 2-Early Fibrosis-some scarring
Stage 3- Severe Fibrosis- more extensive scarring
Stage 4- Cirhossis

Hope this helps.
Keep us posted.
Good Luck