fantastic news. I am very happy to hear this. good luck and wish him my best.
Dr. Schiano,
Thank you for answering my questions. You helped by confirming what our transplant teamed had told us. My husband was placed on the transplant list on July 30 and had his transplant only 6 days later on Aug 5. He is doing very well. The pathology on his old liver was as good as one could want. The mass was completely necrotic, no vascular invasion, nothing anywhere else in the liver, and no lymph node involvement. He is now dealing with high blood pressure and high blood sugar issues, but hopefully when the medication decreases those things will improve.
thank you for your advice.
HCV can cause an elevation of AFP to 100-200. we often repeat CT scan or MRI every 3 months looking for interval growth of lesions if we are not sure.
Thank you for your help. His AFP in mid-April was 18ng which is slightly higher than normal but not indicative of cancer. We understand that hepatitis C can cause a slightly higher than normal AFP and that there is a 30-40% chance of a false negative. Last week he had more blood tests taken--15 vials worth--but we do not have the results yet. That may tell us more.
this sounds like a hepatocellular carcinoma. Is the AFP level elevated? 90 % of patients cannot have resection for their cancer because the liver will fail. Transplant may very well be necessary. if he has cirrhosis he loses nothing by being placed on the liver transplant waiting list. the abnormal lesion can be followed expectantly during this process. Ultrasound is not a good study to look at liver cancer. The difference in size betwen the MRI and CT scan is minimal. Biopsies notoriously are unreliable in this setting with a lot of false negative results.
I hope this is helpful.