[TennesseeGirl]

I have a friend who has Hepatitis C and has had it for years and her liver is severely damaged from it. She did not respond the the interferon treatment to kill the virus. What are the next steps? How long would she be expected to live?

[Steve B]

well.....thing about hep c,usually turns into cancer......prognosis then may be short........good luck to her/him........

[emmy]

Interferons don't always work, and they don't cure Hepatitis, they just reduce it.Lots of people live a very long time with Hep C.If she continues to be unresponsive to treatment, and the liver damage gets worse, there may be the option for a liver transplant, which is the very easiest of organ transplants, and has a really high success rate. You can even do a partial transplant from a friend or family member, and both people regenerate the missing parts of the liver. (How cool is that?)If she and her doctor find a treatment plan that works, she can live to be a very old lady.

[quijibored]

People with Hep C who have failed initial interferon treatment can often be successfully retreated. There are new treatment options available all the time. Did your friend fail interferon monotherapy or the combo therapy? 24 week, 48 weeks or twice a week dosing? Some people need two 48 weeks courses of the combo treatment to go viral negative and stay that way. Your friend probably still has many options if she has been able to maintain her health insurance. HCV is very expensive to treat so the uninsured often have very different treatment opitons available to them.As to her prognosis, it depends on her level of liver fibrosis, whether she has developed cirrhosis, whether she has developed additional HCV related health problems and also whether she still drinks alcohol, uses drugs or whether she really takes care of herself. A person with Hep C and cirrhosis becomes at high risk of primary liver carcinoma after they have had the virus for 25 years (give or take five years). This risk continues to increase as the person ages. Even with HCV she might still be a candidate for liver transplantation but she will probably only be eligible for another infected liver. The US has four million people with HCV growing older so competition for available livers is intense. After all of this is said, luck and genetics also plays into the equation. Some people who have HCV but don't drink will develop liver cancer around ages 45-60 while others with HCV will go to their grave after drinking every day but not developing cancer or cirrhosis. There is no definitive time line available unless her hepatologist tells her to get her affairs in order.

[Stephanie]

a person can live a long time with hcv infection-however, quality of life can be severely affected.i would have your friend look into the latest in what treatment has to offer. the medication is called infergon and used in combination with ribavirin-your friends got a good chance of responding.as always hcv is a complex disease, so she would have to qualify for medications.as for the poster who stated interferon only reduces the hcv virus? that is a false statement. many of those who have a sustained viral response have no active virus-even after a follow up biopsy. those who responded and are sustained well over after a year post antiviral chemotherapy are considered cured.as with any virus, they can return, but studies are suggesting that a SVR beyond a year means"cured".I am post 5 years antiviral chemotherapy and along with many of my peers in the hcv community, we are living proof.again, have your friend ask about infergon. there are other medications that are showing great promise as well , so have her ask her doctor about the latest in hcv trials.good luck to her and tell her to watch what she eats. no alcohol of anykind as well as iron laden foods. sugar kept a minimum as well as artificial, oct meds and drink plenty of water if she cannot tolerate tea or coffee (panic attacks have been caused by a back up of caffiene in the body due to a damaged liver).support your friend...hcv can cause a whooplah of complications and bi-directional diseases.she should be taking milk thistle if her enzymes are elevated (alt and ast).