waiting on treatment

my name is rachel from michigan, i am 41 and was diagnosed in aug 2008, had blood transfussion in 1989. I am a patient at u of m with professor askari. he want me to take a combo treatment. its 11 mos long, one of the meds is the interferon and the other one has yet to be released to th u.s. they say by the end of the year. does anyone know what this new med is called and if there is anyway to find out when it will be available? had my biopsy in march and have stage 5 fibrocis and am a geno type 1 whatever that means. thx u for any help anyone one can give me.

[spectda]

Can you copy the information from your biopsy exactly for us? usually if you are stage 5 it would be called cirrhosis unless you are misunderstanding the information or the doctor is using a different scale then most of us use to determine your liver damage.

There are two new drugs that were approved a couple of months ago that are available for treatment of Hep c genotype 1 now, along with interferon and ribavirin. Once is called Incivek and the other is called Victrelis. It sounds like it's time for you to make an appointment to see dr askari again. When was the last time you saw him?
welcome to the forum,
Dave

[attagrl]

I'm seen at the same hospital, and I can't speak for rachel41, but I know that with me, they use the Ishak Score, which ranges from 1-6 instead of the typical 1-4. I myself scored 3 on my last biopsy (6 years ago) and I verified at my last appointment that it was not the traditional Metavir score.

[spectda]

I was thinking they might use the Ishak score 5-6 equals stage 4 metavir, or cirrhosis.

[HectorSF]

The stage 5 fibrosis of Ishak is equivalent to Metavir F3/F4.
Fibrous septa bridging portal triads and central veins (stage F3).
Cirrhosis (stage F4) appears as nodules of liver parenchyma (hepatocytes) separated by thick fibrous bands.
In other words because of the advanced liver disease you have your liver has at least advanced fibrosis and possibly beginning cirrhosis. Does your doctor say you have cirrhosis? Do you have an enlarged spleen, low platelet count, portal hypertension, varices or fluid retention?

The current standard for treatment is 3 drugs. Peg-interferon, Ribavirin and either Incivek or Victrelis. Not sure what drug your doctor is referring to. Doctor Frederick K Askari, M.D., Ph.D. is knowledgeable about such things so maybe he is talking about a clinical trial that will be coming to the University. You have a good doc and him being a hepatologist the specializes in Hepatitis C at a transplant center is ideal. All patients with advanced liver disease and particularly possible cirrhosis should be under the care of such a doctor.

I would encourage you to learn all you can about hepatitis C and liver disease so you can ask questions of Dr. Askari.
If you have a question he is the best resource as he knows your exact health condition(s) as he has examined you and has all of the test results and he knows what options may be available to you that we can only be guessing at.


Good luck.
Hector