No need for invasive biopsy ,

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AWAYS THOUGHT THEY WERE A DANGEROUS WASTE ,THEY DONT TELL YOU WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY ,
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June 22, 2007
Non-Invasive and Inexpensive Fibrosis Evaluation for HCV
By combining standard liver blood tests with a patient’s age, French researchers have developed a reliable and inexpensive method to determine the extent of liver fibrosis in people with Hepatitis C. While the accuracy of this calculation is only valid within a narrow window of liver injury, it may save many patients from undergoing costly and invasive liver biopsies.

FIB-4: An inexpensive and accurate marker of fibrosis in HCV infection. comparison with liver biopsy and fibrotest.

Vallet-Pichard A, Mallet V, Nalpas B, Verkarre V, Nalpas A, Dhalluin-Venier V, Fontaine H, Pol S.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Université Paris‐Descartes, Paris, France.

To optimize the management of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, noninvasive tests to determine the degree of hepatic fibrosis have been developed. The aims of this study were (1) to validate a simple, inexpensive, noninvasive test called FIB-4, which combines standard biochemical values (platelets, ALT, AST) and age, in a series of 847 liver biopsies performed in HCV-monoinfected patients; and (2) to compare the results of 780 FIB-4 and FibroTests performed the same day in a series of 592 HCV-infected patients. The FIB-4 index enabled the correct identification of patients with severe fibrosis (F3-F4) and cirrhosis with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.85 (95% CI 0.82-0.89) and 0.91 (95% CI 0.86-0.93), respectively. An FIB-4 index

Hey Dan-O
Sounds interesting, are any US doctors using this method? Sure would be nice to know as there are several on our site who are significantly frightened of having a biopsy! How can we find out who
is using this method? Look up deepblue.com. If my treatment doesn’t hold up and clear the virus I want to try this method.