Advances in the diagnosis and treatment of liver fibrosis

Abstract

Liver fibrosis is the center of diagnosis and management of essentially all chronic liver diseases. While liver biopsy examination still has a role in diagnosis and drug development, it is replaced by non-invasive assessments of liver biopsy in majority of the clinical scenarios. Radiological approaches, namely transient elastography, acoustic radiation force impulse imaging, shear wave elastography, magnetic resonance elastography provide accurate diagnosis of advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis. Serum test formulae based on common laboratory parameters or more specialized parameters including those commercially available panels FibroTest^®, FibroMeter^® and Enhanced Liver Fibrosis are also available. Combining different modalities may further improve the accuracy. The role of all these non-invasive assessments has been further expanded from diagnostic to prognostic, e.g. risk prediction of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by LSM-HCC score. Treatment of liver fibrosis can be achieved by controlling the underlying diseases, with chronic viral hepatitis as the most established disease model. Currently there are multiple clinical trials evaluating different treatment options to improve fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Specific anti-fibrotic treatment targets e.g. direct downregulation of hepatic stellate cell, collagen synthesis inhibitors and transforming growth factor-β antagonists have been tested in laboratory and pending further studies in clinical settings.

Keywords

Chronic hepatitis B / chronic hepatitis C / fatty liver / transient elastography

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