Help! Ferritin Level 1715 !! What's Wrong With My Husband????? Help!!! - Liver & Pancreas Disorders Message Board

anne is asking · 02-07-2006, 08:17 PM

Hi,
My husband was taken to the ER because of chest pains, which we later found out were do to pancreatitis. During the series of tests for pancreatitis, they found a tumor in his kidney. Now his pancreatic enzymes are normal but his AST and ALT are still elevated. They did a Ferritin test which was very high. They tested for Hepatitis B and C, both negative. The numbers are below. Today they did a liver biopsy, does anyone understand any of this, and can explain this to me? What is the elevated Ferritin telling them? What is going on with the liver? What do they expect to learn from the biopsy? Thanks for your help.

AST 105
ALT 150
Ferritin 1715

islander81 · 02-15-2006, 04:34 AM

hi there. first of all, keep in mind that it is normal for liver enzymes (alt, ast) to be elevated after a bout of pancreatitis as the liver is still returning to normal from the irritation. the liver is responsible for a lot of things in the body, so he could be having a lot of abnormal test results for now. ferritin is a protein in the body that binds to iron - so the higher the doses, the more iron is stored in your body. its normally stored in the liver (and spleen and bone marrow as well). it is, however, also found in high doses in liver tumors. the reason for the liver biopsy is to rule out the possibility of liver cancer.

i hope that everything is okay with your husband. you can do a search on yahoo - just type 'ferritin and liver' under the search field and theres more information in there about it. good luck!