Thanks so much everyone, the reason I ask is my partner is at a liver clinic that specializes in cirrohsis and treatment and they keep telling him they have seen improvement in liver disease even in those with cirrohsis so I was curious if anyone had had such results. Thanks everybody
Recovery/regression makes sense. Once the source of the inflammation is removed, healing can begin. The liver is a remarkably resilient organ, one of the few in the human body that regenerates itself after damage.
Granted, cirro means "scar tissue", but one can't help but believe things will improve. I know I will.
I'm going to schedule a biopsy in October because it will be 3 years since my last one and if the PI's don't become available in 2011 at least I'll have a current biopsy for a trial study. Should be interesing to see if my extended tx helped or at least kept me the same.
Trin
That's encouraging. That really is tremendous improvement!
Thanks for posting.
Mike
good poll, thanks for posting it!
A friend of mine who was in the Halt C study which required a biopsy after 5 years of SVR, went from Stage 4 to Stage 1.
Agree that it is uncommon to re-biopsy after successful TX. However, I will let you know in a few weeks because I've scheduled one for my own information. I was advised to wait one year after ending the TX drugs, which will put me at a year and a half past clearing the virus from blood and from stopping toxic assault from a drug I was sensitive to. I'm hopeful but the biopsy performed by same doctor and read by same pathologist will tell the tale.
I think the fibroscan situation is the US is less thatn in Canada since it's not yet approved (I think). Post treatment many docs will recommend ultrasounds or other imaging to screen for cancers. But, as my doc tells me, that kind of imaging is not good at determining fibrosis / early cirrhosis repair.
Intersting, here at the liver clinic in Toronto Canada, My partners physcian inisists everyone has a fibroscan 3 months post treatment and every year for follow up to screen for cancer and also think its part of a research study looking at improvements in cirrohsis after treatment. Thanks for yyour imput
This might be a difficult answer for many to answer. Assuming a person reaches SVR there might not be a clinical reason for a doc to order another biopsy unless there might be an additional condition that requires it. Exceptions might be those who have received transplants or those who might have access to the non invasive fibroscan. But, the availability of fibroscan is still limited. There are some who may have had bx's though.