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Fibroscan exam in Surrey this summer can tell you if you’ve got a fatty liver

Potentially life-saving service offered through Canadian Liver Foundation’s Liver Beware Project, for a $20 donation
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You’ll be able to get a quick and easy Fibroscan exam in Surrey this summer that will tell you if you’ve got liver problems. (Submitted photo)

There’s a quick and easy test coming to Surrey this summer that can tell you if you’ve got a fatty liver. It’s a potentially life-saving service offered through the Canadian Liver Foundation’s Liver Beware Project, for a $20 donation.

Statistically one in four Canadians has a fatty liver, and many don’t experience symptoms of liver disease until it’s too late.

According to the foundation, a Fibroscan increases the potential for early detection, of critical importance for treatment. Fatty liver disease occurs when excess fat is stored in your liver, making it harder for it to filter your blood and break down substances, and is considered to be related to poor diet and lack of physical activity.

A Fibroscan is noninvasive, using ultrasound technology to measure how stiff your liver is and approximately how much fat your liver contains.

You can get your test done between July 1 and Aug. 27 at the London Drugs Pharmacy in Guildford Town Centre, at 10355-152 Street. It’s being offered on weekends, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

If you want to get tested sooner, Fibroscans are also being offered until June 25 at the London Drugs Pharmacy in Vancouver at 525 West Broadway.

Dr. Eric Yoshida, chairman of the Canadian Liver Foundation’s Medical Advisory Committee, says a Fibroscan can measure scarring on a liver, which at the end stage can result in cirrhosis as it progresses, lead to liver failure put you at increased risk of liver cancer.

Dr. Eric Yoshida, chairman of the Canadian Liver Foundation’s Medical Advisory Committee. (Submitted photo)
Dr. Eric Yoshida, chairman of the Canadian Liver Foundation’s Medical Advisory Committee. (Submitted photo)

If you have cirrhosis or other liver disease and didn’t know about it, and are then armed with such a test result, your family doctor can make a referral to a liver specialist to try to find medical ways to fix it, make it better or stabilize it, Yoshida advises, and order an ultrasound every six months “to make sure if you get a liver cancer, it’s a small one that can be cured up as opposed to a big one, in which case you’re in big trouble.”

Fatty liver disease is a marker for heart attacks and strokes and getting a Fibroscan done “can be life-altering and sometimes even life-saving in the long run,” Yoshida notes.

“We’re talking about early diagnosis and early treatment and institutional screening if you’re in trouble. Even if you only have fat in your liver but you don’t have much scarring, well, the institution of behavioural changes like healthy diet, healthy exercise that may not only help your liver but may help your coronary arteries, your cerebral arteries and maybe help your future diabetes as well, that kind of thing.”

Being a couch potato, eating too many potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, junk food, and drinking soda pop can hurt your liver. Best stay avoid fructose, a primary ingredient in soda pop.

“We live in a sedentary society. Back in the 1930s people had enough calories and there was no machinery and people engaged in hard labour and so they got enough physical activity just trying to survive at work. Now everybody sits in a cubicle, looks at a computer screen and then they go home, and then they either look on their home computer, they play video games and they watch television.”

Yoshida says a Fibroscan examination takes about three minutes. “It’s really easy.”

A technician places a probe over your liver, presses a button, a sound wave goes through, reflects back and it’s done.

“Patients need to be fasting or it can be skewed towards high readings,” Yoshida notes.

He says the technician will give you a report then and there to give to your doctor and “will tell you right away” if you’ve got a fatty liver.

To book an appointment, call 604-707-6430 or email liverbeware@liver.ca

For more information about Liver Beware, check out https://www.liver.ca/how-you-help/british-columbia/liver-beware/



About the Author: Tom Zytaruk

I write unvarnished opinion columns and unbiased news reports for the Surrey Now-Leader.
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