Invasive and non-invasive diagnosis of cirrhosis and portal hypertension.
With advances in the management and treatment of advanced liver disease, including the use of antiviral therapy, a simple, one stage description for advanced fibrotic liver disease has become inadequate. Although refining the diagnosis of cirrhosis to reflect disease heterogeneity is essential, current diagnostic tests have not kept pace with the progression of this new paradigm. Liver biopsy and hepatic venous pressure gradient measurement are the gold standards for the estimation of hepatic fibrosis and portal hypertension (PHT), respectively, and they have diagnostic and prognostic value. However, they are invasive and, as such, cannot be used repeatedly in clinical practice. The ideal noninvasive test should be safe, easy to perform, inexpensive, reproducible as well as to give numerical and accurate results in real time. It should be predictive of long term outcomes related with fibrosis and PHT to allow prognostic stratification. Recently, many types of noninvasive alternative tests have been developed and are under investigation. In particular, imaging and ultrasound based tests, such as transient elastography, have shown promising results. Although most of these noninvasive tests effectively identify severe fibrosis and PHT, the methods available for diagnosing moderate disease status are still insufficient, and further investigation is essential to predict outcomes and individualize therapy in this field.
Moon Young Kim, Soon Koo Baik, Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medcine, Wonju Severance Christan Hospital, Wonju 220-701, South Korea.
Moon Young
MY
Kim
Moon Young Kim, Soon Koo Baik, Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medcine, Wonju Severance Christan Hospital, Wonju 220-701, South Korea.
Woo Kyoung
WK
Jeong
Moon Young Kim, Soon Koo Baik, Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medcine, Wonju Severance Christan Hospital, Wonju 220-701, South Korea.
Soon Koo
SK
Baik
D001706:Biopsy; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D054459:Elasticity Imaging Techniques; D005355:Fibrosis; D006801:Humans; D006975:Hypertension, Portal / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D011379:Prognosis; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D018608:Ultrasonography, Doppler
Hepatic fibrosis; Hepatic venous pressure gradient; Liver biopsy; Non-invasive test; Portal hypertension; Transient elastography