Liver biopsy to assess liver fibrosis is likely to be supplanted by non-invasive biochemical and imaging tests in the next few years, a recent review has claimed.
“Non-invasive assessment is already a reality in patients with chronic hepatitis C,” the authors wrote.
In other highly prevalent diseases, such as alcoholic liver disease or NAFLD/NASH, there was still some room for improvement but the science supporting alternative procedures was continuing to advance.
“Liver biopsy will still be part of clinical practice in the coming years, but progress in biomedicine will challenge previously entrenched assumptions. There may yet come a time when liver biopsy will be history,” they said.
Panels of biochemical markers of fibrosis included the ‘Fibrotest’ that calculated a fibrosis...
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