Hi Gary,i cant help much with detailed feedback about blood tests but i can tell you about my experience with harvoni.i am 57 was genotype 1a for about 38 years and got on one of the first trials 2 years ago.
I had not previously treated as i didnt want to do interferon.As it was a trial i was tested at 1 week 2 weeks 4,6 8 and 12.it was a 24 week regimen but for the last 12 weeks i was tested monthly.
The thing i wanted to highlight to you is that although i had absolutely no side effects that i could feel, at my first weeks blood test my liver enzymes were very elevated to the point of concern to the doctors.They said i may have to stop the trial but i pleaded with them not to as i was feeling fine.They let me carry on and by the time i had my 2 week test the liver enzymes had dropped back to normal and my viral load had gone from 5 million to 5 hundred.
i wanted to share this with you as i think it is common for the enzymes to be briefly elevated and you should ask your doctor to get informed about this.Good luck,David

In the absence of Ribavirin and with you feeling well:

Baseline: FBC, Cr&E, LFTs and Viral load are sufficient

4 weeks into treatment: LFTs and Viral load (expecting normal LFTs and zero viral load). This proves you have the right medication and that things are progressing as expected.

If your liver function is better and your viral load zero at 4 weeks into treatment you can stop testing. If not a repeat in 2 weeks would be sensible.

There is very little point in doing further testing once you are VL 0 until after you finish treatment unless you are unwell.

More monitoring won’t hurt (other than your pocket) but is not likely to add any actionable information.

Post treatment we wait to see if you VL 0 was a real zero or if you still had some HCV below our limit of detection (which is where recurrence comes from).

• A viral load of zero at 4 weeks (SVR 4) predicts a 97% chance of being SVR24
• A viral load of zero at 12 weeks (SVR 12) predicts a 99.7% chance of being SVR24
• A viral load of zero at 4 weeks (SVR 24) predicts a 100% chance of being SVR24

SVR24 means < 1% chance of ever seeing the virus again.

What is Cr&E?

The same procedure for Sofusbuvir+ledipasvir?

Just wondering if the LFT’s are not normal at 4 weeks but have improved, halved would this still be within normal limits for treatment, still awaiting viral load.

Maybe a dumb question, and probably answered before, but (Dr. Freeman) as I see your reference in post above to “Zero” levels, and since my tests appear to only go to the undetectable below 15 mark, is there another more specific test that can identify an actual ZERO level as opposed to just not showing an undetected below 15 marker? I’ve been wondering about this since I got my “undetected” below 15 at 4 weeks.

I think they can detect lower that 15 … they just can’t quantify accurately below 15 … undetected means they didn’t find any at all … doesn’t mean there is zero, just that they can’t detect it.

That’s why you keep treating after you hit undetected, to pick off the stragglers.

And that’s why you have to test 12-24 weeks after eot … if there are too many for your immune system to finish off they’ll show back up before that time … if they don’t show back up by then you can assume they were all finished off.

Dr. James wrote a post here somewhere that gives probabilities … I’ll have to look in the expert’s corner and see if I can find it.