So after decades of alcohol abuse I had a CT scan of my liver 2 years ago. The report said " The parenchyma demonstrates increased echogenicity and coarse echotexture. Appearances are
suggestive of early cirrhotic changes.." and also received a text message from the doctor saying "your liver scan confirms cirrhosis."
Had a fibro scan on Friday Think the machine was off.
I think more tests are needed. See your hepatologist. What about your blood tests like LFT, specific ELF or fibrotest? Any known factors that can damage your liver (alcohol, weight)?
CT is not the best to diagnose cirrhosis however your findings may suggest this but this can be false alert. It would be weird that your doctor made a diagnosis based only on this test.
Also fibroscan is good to rule out cirrhosis (your result) but also can sometimes be false negative (rather not so often).
Good luck.
In some cases even early cirrhosis can be reversed if the cause of the damage is removed. It is quite possible your liver has been repairing itself during the last two years. Your fibroscan result is excellent, and doesn't look like a cirrhosis score, but you really need to discuss this with your doctor.
thanks
I've been same as you. I was told I had cirrhosis. It's all confusing. So much conflicting views. I wish things were clearer for us to understand. I've lost alot of faith in the professionals with all the conflicting views. That's there job I thought. Hope u find the right answers, I'm still trying . Best wishes
If tests indicate an early indication of a self inflicted sick liver its possible to repair it with lifestyle changes.BUT you have already proven that your prone to liver disease if you abuse it and its a lifelong commitment to keep it healthy!
I am confused by a result of a recent fibroscan I had which showed a 6.7 (higher end of normal range). Two years ago I was originally diagnosed with decompensated liver function, with jaundice and some ascites with a ("coarse ecotexture consistent with underlying cirrhosis") and a Child Pugh of C. However this was at a time I also had serious covid and fortunately the jaundice and ascites went and my with all my bloods in range 6 months later I got a Child Pugh of A. Two years later I now have this fibroscan result.
My consultant is sending me back for another fibroscan (which is taking months) as he says that sometimes there are false negatives which my higher BMI >30 won't help. I fully accept that those can happen but my understanding was also that the fibroscan takes multiple readings and that my mean score also had a low deviation so I would have thought that low deviation in results was somewhat helpful. Maybe not?
At the end of the day, while I am grateful for periodic scans confirming no lesions and normal bloods, at no point in the past two years have I ever been sat down and someone pointed to the images and gone "see this is not so bad / bad / significant damage". That's after 3 CT scans, 3 ultra sounds and a fibroscan. I feel like I'm in the dark. Is this normal not to know the extent of damage other than a Child Pugh or similar? Thanks for any comments in advance.
Hi. I've felt in the dark quite often regarding state of my liver....you really need to push your consultant for a more detailed report of your latest scans,bloods etc. I was only getting a 1 sentence letter in the post after my usual 6 monthly ultrasound and bloods. I phoned the consultants secretary and asked for more detail in her responses. Since then, I've had a far more detailed letter!!. At the bottom of the letter ,she said its good that I was taking an interest in my liver condition!!!. Take care. Chris
I feel like I’m in the dark as well. Took a while before the specialist even told me I had compensated cirrhosis. After I was told I have been back 2 times. the last time my varices were gone. The specialists seemed happy because I haven’t drank been eating much better but didn’t go over blood work or anything. Just said your mri shows you have no indications of cancer. Keep up the good work, try to lose more weight and I will see you in 6 months. Seems like once they determine you have cirrhosis that’s it. There’s no chance of improvement or reversing anything. It’s making sure your liver doesn’t decline drastically.
thank you for the reply (and to the others who replied). On 'there's no chance of improvement or reversing anything' my consultant said to me 'the books say that there is no chance that once cirrhotic damage has been occurred that the liver can heal that but I have seen it happen. It is rare but it can'.
He then told me of the case of a long term patient of his, a woman in her 30s, who had been hospitalised with decompensated performance and ascites etc but who had come back to compensated and who had perfectly normal bloods years later and no further problems through total abstinence. (I also came back from decompensated to compensated). But then this is a bit of a different point to maybe healing damage and getting low fibroscan scores when you'd previously had a more negative general diagnosis.
It is confusing. I think it is down to the fact that consultants are of course dealing with more serious cases and so if you're compensated and your bloods are normal then in the general scheme of things the position is 'not much to report since last time again.' I also remind myself that the whole prognosis / mean life expectancy is of course heavily skewed by people who can't give up drink or change life style and the more advanced age of people generally diagnosed. If you put that all in the mix, maybe you end up with 'you're as good as you can be for now in an uncertain world, so just try and get on with life and keep getting checked out.' I definitely want a consultant who is clearer than that but maybe it's all that can be said.
I guess what I don't understand at the end of the day is that if the scans show a coarse ecotexture why a consultant can't sit you down and show you a picture of it and say ' OK on a scale of damage this is X out of 100'. Has anyone every been shown their images like that?
I 100% agree with everything you said. You hit the nail right on the head. That is exactly how I feel. When I was at the facility I saw several people there and they did not look well at all. For arld I agree with you, people keep drinking and say they aren’t. It only took the gastro doctor telling me if I keep drinking I won’t see my 40th birthday. I will be 40 in a few months. After I heard that and knowing my liver was damaged I haven’t touched it since. Of course at the time the doc said I didn’t have cirrhosis and my liver would go back to normal which I later found out from a hepatologist was not the case. I’m hoping by not drinking ever again I will die with liver disease and not from it. Cheers!
G.
Mine came in at 4.6 was very surprised. even shocked. Thought it would be at least in the teens.
jimbo1234 this is an old post but I am just reading it...how are you doing these days? Any more ultrasounds? Did the coarse texture and increased echogencity go away? Did you have anything like ascites etcetera that brought you in to see the doctor in the first place? I hope things all turned out so well for you...I recently had a fibroscan of 9.0 kPa on Nov 1 - it was 11.8 kPa in July so I am happy with the decrease but I know that once you abstain from alcohol it decreases to a certain extent but I am hoping some of that is reversal and that it continues!!!
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