Re-Biopsy after SVR

[newleaf09]

I just got the results of my post-TX biopsy.  Re-biopsy is not typically recommended but I have plans to move away from good health care and needed verification that I will be safe.  I was biopsied and started TX as a genotype 1 in November 2008.  The '08 biopsy was very bad; grade 3 inflammation, stage 4 fibrosis.  The pathologist called it 'probable or incipient cirrhosis'.  Scared me to death!  I went through a very rough 28 week TX and am still not recovered from it.  My doctor recommended that I wait one full year after the end of TX (June 1).  Here are the new results: Grade 1, Stage 2-3.

I had hoped for 2 stages of regression and then got scared of being overly optimistic and jinxing myself.  The doctor was astounded, I am astounded.  I asked if, since the biopsy was done so soon after TX, he thought I would continue to heal and he did not have an answer because it's so rare for SVR patients to re-biopsy and there's just nothing to compare to.  He thinks more regression is likely.  I also asked him if I could stop worrying about liver cancer and he cautiously said that he thought so, that he thought HCC, the type of liver cancer we HCV patients worry about, was highly associated with both cirrhosis and HCV together and since I had lost both I was probably safe now.  Not for sure, but 'probably' is good enough for me.  

This may be my last post on the forum.  When I get the hard copy of the biopsy report, I'm thinking of adding it to my inch-thick file and burning the whole thing.  It's over.  Happy, happy, happy.

[Trinity4]

Correction: Technically IFN is Immunotherapy. Riba is antiviral therapy.

[Trinity4]

Immunosuppressive therapy/antiviral therapy is the proper name but a lot of people like to call it chemo.  Been through both, there's a huge difference.

Trinity

[Diane12855]

Heck! I'd frame the second biopsy report to remind that part of your brain that likes to worry so you can say..."See there?... nothing to worry about any more."

[newleaf09]

Alright already.  I had an ultrasound of abdomen on Friday, including liver.  Will include AFP in with some other bloodwork this fall.  Was only up to 17.5 at highest pre-TX level but it will not kill me to look at it a few more times.

I AM going to burn all of the lab reports, though.  File's an inch thick and weighs a few pounds.  I cannot imagine why I would ever want to look back at it and see how desperately ill I was on chemo.  I did graph it all on a single sheet and probably won't delete the graph for a while, but looking at the file can only make me feel bad. I don't want any of that information.   Maybe I'll keep the 2 biopsy reports.  

[Diane12855]

That didn't apply to me... the liver enzymes indicating inflammation that is. Because of another liver issue, I had to have regular liver panels done since 2002 and they have always been normal until this past January and then they were just a little above normal. Just enough to cause my doctor to have me checked for hepatitis. Two months later the biopsy showed stage 2 grade 2 so unless it could progress that much in 2 months, the inflammation had to be going on while my enzymes were normal.

This is probably why so many people go undiagnosed. Just like in sx, everybody is so different, they can't say any one certain thing points to inflammation or infection for that matter.

[frijole]

new leaf (and bill)
My liver enzymes have always been low -- in the 20s.  It was only after treatment and relapse that they spiked - in the 50s and then as high as the 80s.  That is how I knew that I had relapsed before I had the VL test.  Now they are back in the 20s.  haven't had a viral load test done in a couple of years but I imagine it is about where I was before treating.  I too believe that we can use the liver enzymes as indicators.In me they indicate a low inflammation level.

frijole