Stages

Could someone answer this for me, what is bridging fibrosis from portal to portal. 2 years ago my husband was stage 1 grade 1 now its stage 3 grade 3 he is genotype 1. Thanks

[jmjm530]

While a few different systems are used, by the descriptive language you use, it appears that he's now stage 3 in a 4 stage system where stage 4 is cirrhosis.

In general, Hepatitis C is fairly slow moving but not in all cases. Also, you should understand that biopsy staging can be off by as much as two stages due to sample size, relative sample size and pathologist bias. .So hard to conclude that he's progressing rapidly as opposed to some discrepency in how the slides were processed and read.

I see from your profile that this is your first post so you should be advised that none of us here are doctors, just patients like your husband. We do however have a professional forum where a doctor will answer questions for a small fee here:
http://www.medhelp.org/forums/show/272

Is your husband currently seeing a hepatologist (liver specialist) or just a gastro or family doc? If he isn't seeing a hepatologist, my suggestion would be pull his records together -- blood tests, ultrasound reports, biopsy reports, etc -- and make one or two appointments with a hepatologist to review his chart. You should also bring with you both original slide sets from the biopsy, not just the report. That way they might be able to get a better handle on how fast the damage is progressing, if that is what's going on.

Have treatment options been discussed yet? If he is indeed stage 3 your husband should be having that discussion now with a hepatologist. Curious, how old is he and how long do you think he's been infected with the virus?

-- Jim

[apache1]

see if this answers your question...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14568255?dopt=AbstractPlus

[Cupcake227]

Thanks for your help with my question. My  husband is 40 and hep c positive 15+ years the docs think. We see his gastro tomorrow so I hope he has some options for us.