What are the stages of hepatitis C?

I think you are mixing two different questions together. There are only two stages of Hep C (HCV). The first stage is acute, meaning that the battle is on. Some people's immune systems are actually able to beat HCV at this point. It isn't all that often, it's more common in women than men, but it does happen. It will still leave anti-bodies in the system so no more blood donations, but that's not a terrible price to pay, considering... The other stage is chronic. If your immune system is unable to beat the HCV during the initial infection acute phase, the HCV becomes a chronic disease. The reason HCV is detected so late in so many people is due to the fact that chronic HCV usually does it's damage to the liver over an extended period of time. There are exceptions to this, but for the most part it moves slowly, with little in the way of symptoms until it has caused enough damage that people notice that somethings wrong, I think you are thinking of the stages of fibrosis or cirrhosis. In fibrosis the first level would be some fibrosis evident, second is moderate fibrosis, third is bridged fibrosis (where area's of fibrosis join up to other areas of fibrosis and begin filling that gap), the fourth stage is severe fibrosis. The 4 stage damage summation is seldom used in cirrhosis anymore, as there are newer tests which refine the level of a cirrhotic liver's damage to include many types of damage with a liver "meld" score that is used in determining your position in the waiting line for a liver transplant. I did a little more research and think I have your answer. 1. Little / no damage 2. Fibrosis 3. Compensated cirrhosis 4. Uncompensated cirrhosis Compensated cirrhosis lets a person continue to live. If uncompensated cirrhosis is reached it's time for a transplant.