Advances in Serum Diagnosis of Liver Fibrosis

Liver fibrosis is hepatic excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins including collagens occurring in various chronic liver diseases.It can progress to cirrhosis,resulting in liver failure and portal hypertension.There is a consensus that liver fibrosis is reversible,hence,definite diagnosis and estimating the degree of fibrosis are important for its prevention,treatment and prognostic assessment.Liver biopsy has long been taken as the gold standard for diagnosis of liver fibrosis.Yet it is invasive and not usually acceptable by the patients.Serum-based test is a non-invasive procedure,not only can it be used for its early diagnosis,but also for dynamic follow-up study.This diagnostic test consists of several serum-markers of liver fibrosis,which increases the diagnostic accuracy of liver fibrosis.Here the advances in the field of development and research study of serum diagnosis of liver fibrosis are reviewed.