FibroSure and biopsy

[MarkFly1]

Last summer or thereabouts, I had a Fibrosure test which indicated a score of F3 which was quite high compared to previous assessments of my liver.  My doc then decided we should do a liver biopsy which showed a fibrosis score of 0-1.  We decided to do another Fibrosure test 2 weeks ago which I discovered yesterday was F4 Cirrhosis.  Yikes.  Well, I did a little further digging and discovered that the Fibrosure test requires 10-12 hours of fasting ... no one had told me this and in both cases I had eaten regular meals.  Would digesting food skew the results so dramatically?
Because of this last test, my doc wants to start me on Telaprevir+PegIfn+Ribavirin.  Only prior treatments were with regular Interferon and Ribavirin.  I have the IL28B allele CC.  Should I go ahead and do the TPR treatment or wait for Sofosbuvir or do another Fibrosure test this time after fasting?

[Diana66]

Not to spoil you excitement but I had similar values. I had 1.5 mil, than down to 150000, I had vitamins, zinc, milk thistle, freash juices, you name it and than 6 months later virus was up again to 1.5mil.
I think the levels are always fluctuating in this way and no vitamins are in fact changing the levels!!! That did not make a difference for the level of fibrosis either, had severe fibrosis when I started tx

Hard to believe it after all the healthy life style I was having :)

I stopped any vitamins during the Telaprevir phase and couple of months after that but now I am back taking my vit D 50,000 units once per week. Levels dropped somehow since I started tx so I thought I will top up. I aslo tried vit b12 injection once per week. And now I am also on zinc as I have done a zinc test last week and I could hardly taste it so time for a top up as well :)

Good luck with your tx

[MarkFly1]

Got my viral load today.  Last year it was 4 million ---log 6.6.  Now it is 233884 --- log 5.37.  Down a factor of 20.  I know these loads can vary quite a bit, but I'm just gonna keep taking Vitamin D, Zinc and Vitamin B12.  Really happy it was this low!

[MarkFly1]

Thanks for the comments.  One thing the Fibrosure showed me was a high iron level.  Something to further check out.  The good thing about the situation is that if for whatever reason I cannot continue with the Telaprevir+, new treatments are right around the corner.  Type 1a can be a bit more difficult to get rid of, but I went undetectable pretty quickly back in 95 for a few months until a dose reduction.  Having never had pegylated interferon not to mention Telaprevir, I'm pretty optimistic, but it's nice to have some options.  Ceanothus, I hope your energy levels come back soon.  Check out some research of recent vintage on fibrosis regression using inhibitors.  There is a bright sun on the horizon!

[Diana66]

Not sure why you refere to it as blind data, or why do you think is a scam. Fibroscan has beed FDA approved. There is really no need for extreme invasive diagnostic methods especially for determining the status of a liver prior to HCV tx

Biopsy is not very accurate either since is showing a reading from one spot only. It is not really a reflection of the health of the liver as a whole

[quayle]

as a person who has had every test I thin k there is,there coming up with all sorts of new things they have a fibroscam,I mean fibro scan youhave to do your own research as to the reliability,still the golden test always has been and still is is a Biopsy,all the rest are blind Data.

[ceanothus]

I WAS type 1a! It's so cool to be able to use the past tense. It actually is still something I have to stop and correct myself on, but I'm catching myself pretty quickly now, so I think I've almost gotten used to the idea of it being over. I know that stubborn thing too. My 15-month tx was one of those - I wasn't UND when I was supposed to be but my vl had dropped a lot so I pleaded with my doc to let me try to keep going. I did finally get to UND and then kept going so I had the same total time of being UND as those who did it on the normal schedule. I hoped it would work but the virus was back strong just 6 weeks after tx ended. I'm so glad this one really did work for me. I hope it works as well for you!