Enlarged Spleen

[hopefulgirl38]

So now I'm panicking my boyfriends spleen is enlarged, does this mean his cirrohsis is advanced.  He just staaarted  treatment, he has had no signs of decompensation, no varceses, acities etc.  Now       I'm worried this is the beginning of decompensation

[Bill1954]

A likely explanation is that the spleen is sequestering platelets due to your boyfriend’s cirrhosis. I don’t think this necessarily means he’s beginning to decompensate; I had splenomegaly per U/S scan with stage 3-4 liver disease, which subsequently resolved with treatment. If his platelets are low, you might now know where they’re hiding, though.

Did he just receive an ultrasound? Do you know what his last platelet count was?

Bill

[Diane12855]

I'm going to try to explain what I remember from my Anatomy/ Physiology class 8 years ago so that you won't be quite so concerned... hopefully. The spleen and the liver are two completely different organs with completely different jobs. The spleen gets enlarged because it is filtering out the damaged red blood cells and their fragments from the blood stream. If you read the pamphlet that came with the Ribavirin, it says that there is a chance of hemolytic anemia... which means some of the cells literally burst. If all of those pieces were allowed to keep circulating through the blood stream it would set off an immune response throughout the whole body, so the spleen captures them and processes them to protect the rest of the body, and sometimes that makes it get larger in the process.

Did the doctor have blood work done when he discovered the enlarged spleen? He probably ordered a CBC to see how many cells are being effected and there are treatments for that to help his body make more cells to replace the damaged ones.

[Upbeat]

Don't panic.  More normal than not for people with hep-c.  I would suspect he also has low platelets.  This has nothing to do with decompensation.