interferon lambda? Is this gonna be availalble in US or in Europe after the trial? Thank you.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AASLD/16856
as you see from the stady death by liver failure happens with normal alt, alt can be useful if monitored for a long time because if always normal for years you might suppose that liver damage or previous liver damage has recovered
it will be very interesting when they will study the other levels of liver function not only the ones close to death
if you have hbsag quantification available by abbott architet you might check that because if it is decreasng it means that you are clearing most of infected cells from hbv
hbvdna/alt flactuates on cronic hbv from active disease to inactive and it is very poor test to see if you are clearing or just normal cronic hbv.
the best is to wait for the new drugs and just monitor hbvdna/alt to stay low/moderate
Hi Stefano,
Thank you so much for gr8 information, I had done my blood test in Aug 2010 and following were the results:
HEPATITIS B VIRUS DNA, PCR
HEPATITIS B VIRUS DNA 281412 H (REF: <29 IU/ml)
HEPATITIS B VIRUS DNA 1,637,818 H (REF: 169 copies/ml)
AST 29 (REF: 10-40U/L)
ALT 50 (REF: 9-60U/L)
ALKALINE Phosphate 34 L (REF: 40-115 U/L)
And then I did a test on Oct 22nd (3 months later):
HEPATITIS B VIRUS DNA, PCR
HEPATITIS B VIRUS DNA Pending
HEPATITIS B VIRUS DNA Pending
AST 19 (REF: 10-40U/L)
ALT 31 (REF: 9-60U/L)
ALKALINE Phosphate 34 L (REF: 40-115 U/L)
My ALT levels have gone down from 50 (Aug 01st), then 65 (Sept 20th) and now on Oct 22nd it is 31, can someone help me with the results (I will share the DNA HepB count later when I have it). Also during these last 3 months I have lost 10 pounds (with some excersize, etc.) Is this ALT level change more from my wieght loss?
if your hbvdna is not very very high you'd better wait because there are many drugs available soon that act on hbv and not only on hbvdna replication
interferon lambda which has no sides so that responders can use it for years until hbsag negative, baracludex (which blocks viral entrance)
how does one monitor the liver function?
--Blood test of ALT/AST.
if it is normal should someone still start medication?
--Depends on who you ask.
in your case is not necessary a real liver function test since the damage is little and blood tests will never detect it so early
a real measure is most useful for advanced/cirrhosis stage but all blood tests are not sensitive enough to measure liver function and when they are abnormal the damage is too advanced
during advanced fibrosis stage alt/ast can be perfectly normal despite very low function, in cirrhosis they are surprisingly normal despite hbvdna quantitity low to moderate, high liver damage and very low liver function.
the most sensitive tests used now are platlets, PT, bilirubin,ggt, albumin and some other but i stress this again during cirrhosis they can all be normal but liver function is not really normal
the most sensitive are still on trial and the most sensitive is brethtest, the same as the one for helictobacter and the same machine.
it is on trial with a high number of patients to set all the values according to the liver damage and liver function but i read at conferences that some values are set already