Liver fibrosis: modern diagnostic principles

High viral hepatitis morbidity, prevalence of overweight and alcohol abuse make the problem of early diagnosis of chronic liver diseases rather urgent. It is known that presence and degree of manifestation of liver fibrosis is of great significance for the choice of therapeutic tactics and assessment of prognosis for this category of patients. In the course of decades, biopsy was the only method for assessment of liver fibrosis. However, invasiveness and complexity of its realization, errors at the stage of interpreting morphological picture require development of noninvasive and precise methods for diagnosis of fibrosis. At present, there was suggested a number of instrumental and laboratory methods pretending to the role of "a perfect method". Some instrumental methods demonstrate a high diagnostic accuracy but are expensive and need special equipment. Serum fibrosis markers, determined for today, are highly sensitive and specific only in case of marked fibrosis but they are low-informative for early diagnosis. Thus, searching of noninvasive, available and precise method for assessment of liver fibrosis is still going on.