Less than two months ago my ultrasound and blood test results were normal but my FibroTest (aka FibroSure) result showed I have Fibrosis stage 3 (F3). The liver specialist told to that I will need to start treatment for my HBV because F3 means that I have severe liver scaring.
But I did not start the treatment because I was in the process of changing hospital and doctor due to my new job and the type of medical insurance they provide.
At the new hospital, I did not have FibroTest blood test because they did not have it (they claim that the reason they don't have it is because it's not as accurate as FibroScan).
But I did a FibroScan test and my Fibrosis score was 4.7. They said based on my ultrasound, FibroScan and blood test results, all showing normal, I do not need any treatment at this time.
Has anyone experience something like this where one type of test showing F3 and another test showing F0-F1?
I have decided to trust the FibroScan results and do nothing for now. Do you think I should be doing something to figure out why my FibroTest result showed I have severe liver scaring? If so, what do you think I should do?
Thank you for your time!
- Sam
I live in the U.S., male, 40, have chronic HBV
Written by
Tsioncity
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You should discuss it with a liver specialist. I'd be more inclined to trust the FibroScan because it's been around longer and directly measures liver stiffness by sending waves through the liver. The FibroSure test in contrast analyses a blood sample & the algorithm it uses may need tweaking to take into account the effect on the blood of specific liver conditions. More studies are clearly needed to determine the relative accuracy of each test. Until the reason for the discrepancy in scores is determined a biopsy may be necessary to ascertain the true state of your liver. Either that or go with the FibroScan result because it's been around longer & is tried & tested.
I found one study (see the link below) that compared the accuracy of FibroSure & FibroScan scores for patients with hep C & it found that there was a marked discrepancy between results for half of the people tested with FibroSure scores tending to be higher than FibroScan scores.
"When FibroSure and FibroScan scores were compared, close to half of co-infected patients had discordant results, the preponderance of which had higher FibroSure scores. As early initiation of HCV treatment is crucial to co-infected patients, further studies will need to evaluate the clinical significance of the discrepancy between different non-invasive fibrosis testing systems in co-infected patients."
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