If there is no levels of he virus in the body 6 months after your treatment, many Doctors are calling that a “cure”. You can’t pass the virus on to anybody and there is no damage being done if there is no virus in the blood test results. I undertand about him talking of no “long term studies” but I’ll be happy when my liver values are in normal range and not in the 400 hundreds like the last 20 years.

I’m not a doctor, but this guy is full of shit. I read many years ago that if you were exposed to the Hep C virus, via sexual contact or IV drug use, the standard for declaring someone “uninfected” is 24 weeks. Seems to me that logic would indicate if a Viral load test cannot detect the virus at 24 weeks, you are 99.9% cured.

If Dr. Freeman says this, then I believe that 1000% more than some unknown doctor. Dr. Freeman is being quoted world wide in the press. Dr. Freeman is out here risking everything to help Hep C patients.

Even Gilead is saying if you are SVR 12 that is a cure. So between Gilead and Dr. Freeman, I believe SVR 24 is a cure.

Forget this loser, he’s just looking for exposure. Maybe one in 5000 people is still infected after SVR 24. I’ll take those odds.

Hmmm, I’m not a doctor either but I notice that one of his complaints is that 1-2% of those who were F3-4 and achieved SVR in his study developed complications such as HCC and decompensation of their cirrhosis. I know that the rates for comparable patients who either don’t SVR or don’t treat at all are quite a lot higher. I do agree with him that long term retrospective studies will usefully add to our knowledge and I’m sure that these will happen over the 20 or more years that he throws around.

……….however, he hasn’t walked a mile in my shoes so I will just state that I won’t be waiting that long as I have already felt the difference to my quality of life that treatment has brought about (despite an initial relapse) so I’m looking forward to maintaining those improvements by successfully achieving SVR whether it meets his definition of a “cure” or no.

I agree with Dr. Freeman’s assessments and say, “well said” to the recent posts. Could not agree more with the eternal optimist, Gaj.

Matt

Dr Freeman,

Just wondering – getting a viral load test at 24 weeks is expensive for most people (or for the taxpayer if one’s quota has not run out) and takes a long time.

Would just doing the LFTs be a cheap and quick proxy to test SVR at 24 weeks and beyond?

If one assumes that a relapse will be associated with rising ALT/AST/GGT, would this be an economical runaround just to check that everything is still on track? Then one could do a PCR if the LFTs were high (assuming they had been abnormal during the original infection).

What do you think?

Good morning
Re this question, from my perspective:
I’m doing SVR 24 for two reasons
1. To provide data for FHC
2. To provide peace of mind to Ariels head.
Recently I did LFTs they were fantastic so relieved totally agree that it’s a great indicator of how things are going.
Today at around 21 weeks post EOT I am getting my scan results in hard copy and another LFT bloods done.
As James said above re peace of mind, I am doing this for me and my headspace really as I am absolutely certain I have been cured but I am an old relapser and need to be extra reassured. Simple.
Seems sensible to me.
I like to provide data too, as I am sure we all do, I think it helps attract people to FHC the more data the better I guess
This week I have achieved more than in four years since the old tx and I am so grateful to FHC
Ariel