Assessing liver fibrosis

Abstract

Prognosis and management of chronic liver diseases greatly depend on the amount and progression of liver fibrosis. Although liver biopsy is still considered as the gold standard to evaluate fibrosis in the liver, it is an invasive procedure, with rare but potentially life-threatening complications, and is prone to sampling errors. These limitations have stimulated the search for new noninvasive approaches. A number of methods, including serum indices and the measurement of liver stiffness using transient elastography, have been proposed for the noninvasive assessment of hepatic fibrosis, mainly in patients with chronic hepatitis C. It can be anticipated that these noninvasive methods will become an important tool in clinical practice in the near future. This review is aimed at discussing the advantages and limits of these methods and the perspectives for their rationale for use in clinical practice.

Keywords::

• fibroscan
• fibrotest
• liver biopsy
• liver fibrosis
• noninvasive
• serum marker
• transient elastography

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author has no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Notes

ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; APRI: AST to platelet ratio; AST: Aspartate aminotransferase; γGT: γ-glutamyl transpeptidase; INR: International normalized ratio; NAFLD: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

TE: Transient elastography.