Fibroscan accuracy

[raenata]

What is the risk of error with a fibroscan? I got a 3.4 score but the Doctor said something like ‘I’m not going to worry too much about prove placement because I’ve seen your referral and we won’t find anything’

[AyrshireK]

From everything i've read Fibroscan rarely/if ever gives too low a reading so it is probably accurate in your case.

Sometimes where liver inflammation is present it can't differentiate between inflammation and actual liver damage so the risk with fibroscan accuracy is that it is often an incorrect too high reading.

Obviously you've got the concerns with your various elevations of liver enzymes so they should still follow that up, Fibroscan is only revealing no current damage to your liver but it doesn't explain why you are having rises in liver inflammation markers etc. Maybe they need to keep a longer term eye on those to see if there is any pattern and perhaps at some point investigate a bit further.

Katie

[raenata in reply to AyrshireK]

Thanks so much Katie! That makes sense and lines up with what I have read 😊 I have had heaps of LFTs done in the last 8 months and they have excluded most things. The mystery continues! Thanks again, Katie

[AyrshireK in reply to raenata]

Have they ever mentioned the possible need for a liver biopsy? Your levels arn't going massively high but high enough. Sometimes it takes a biopsy to look at the liver on a cellular level to see where the inflammation is happening. Good news from your fibroscan though is that it doesn't look like you've any damage to your liver.

Best wishes, Katie

[raenata in reply to AyrshireK]

My general doctor thinks a biopsy would be useful but I’m not sure they will do it. I get the impression they are not very worried about my liver because I have some reassuring tests. My thinking is that I would rather catch something early. I also have the 2-3 glasses of wine I used to drink for about 10 years in the back of my mind (I stopped months ago).

[AyrshireK in reply to raenata]

Keep off the drink, eat well, exercise and go for further tests, if your results keep coming back high then do push for further tests. Your results arn't that massively high and some people do by nature have 'normal' yet high tests. However, if they were to ever come back really high (into the many hundreds or even thousands as they do in things like uncontrolled auto immune hepatitis)then i'd be asking very strongly for follow up.

Katie

[AyrshireK]

Your 4.8 kPa figure is related to fibrosity i.e. how dense your liver is. If you have NAFLD then 4.8 kPa is still at the F0 (no fibrosis) level.

The figure that would have revealed you had a Severe Fatty Liver would have been you CAP score which tells you how much fat there is built up in the liver.

Katie

[CarpeDiem11]

Not wishing to play devil's advocate, but it is possible to have a lower score than damage on the liver would indicate, although as Katie has said it seems to be rare, but I do know personally of someone that experienced this, much to the surprise of the Consultant. This happened on both fibroscans that were performed years apart. It can occur if the fibroscan scans an area where there is less damage, but occasionally damage elsewhere on the liver is higher and is not being scanned ( the fibroscan takes only 10 results and averages them). Depending on where the damage on the liver is can determine what type of complications occur, but this is not the usual course of events for most people, but could explain unusual findings for some.