Suggest Treatment For Stage 4 Cirrhosis

Posted on Tue, 13 Jun 2017

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Tue, 13 Jun 2017 Answered on

Thu, 29 Jun 2017 Last reviewed on

Question : Hello I am male 49yrs w/ stage 4 cirrhosis and stage 4 fibrosis HIV /AIDS CD4 <100 chronic Hepatitis B dx 17yrs recently cured Hep C for 10yrs w/ HarvonI TX current symptoms peripheral edema ascites severe fatigue. Question why are my AST & ALT < 40? Does this mean my liver is going to completely fail soon?

Answered by Dr. Ramesh Kumar (1 hour later)

Brief Answer:
No as production is less level in blood is less.

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

Have gone through your details and i appreciate your concerns.
As per your question answer is-
Liver consists of millions of small cells called hepatocytes.These hepatocytes produce liver enzyme.A small part of these enzyme diffuses into blood.This is termed as normal enzyme levels.
However due to grade 4 cirrhosis and fibrosis more then 70% of your liver is non functional hence amount of enzyme produced is also hampered leading to low enzyme levels in blood.
There is no correlation of liver enzymes with liver failure.
Serum ammonia and fibroscan are used to monitor that.

To see the exact picture you should get a
MRI scan of liver.

This will give a clear picture of working of liver.

However as of now there is no need to worry as production is less levels in blood is also less.

Hope i explained you the reason .
In case you have any confusion feel free to follow up.
Thanks!

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Prasad