New Model to Detect Common Liver Disease

U.S. demographic, clinical and laboratory data can be used to detect fibrosis in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

This noninvasive method could render liver biopsy unnecessary in a large proportion of patients, according to the findings in Hepatology.

Liver biopsy is the only other way to determine the severity of fibrosis, but it is an expensive and invasive procedure, according to Dr. Paul Angulo of the Mayo Clinic Foundation in Rochester, Minn.

Angulo studied 733 patients diagnosed with NAFLD from 2000 and 2003 who had undergone liver biopsies. Using data from 480 patients, Angulo and colleagues built a statistical model that predicted advanced liver fibrosis in the remaining 253 patients.

NAFLD is the world’s most common cause of chronic liver disease.