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Non-invasive evaluation of Hepatic Fibrosis in patients with Chronic Hepatitis C using Elastography
Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
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Author | Fujimoto, Kenji Wada, Sigeo Oshita, Masahide Kato, Michio Tonomura, Akiko Mitake, T. |
Copyright Year | 2007 |
Abstract | More than one million people worldwide die annually of hepatocellular carcinoma, the third highest cause of death due to malignant neoplasm. Hepatocellular carcinoma often develops from viral hepatitis. It has been reported that the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma is related to the stage of hepatic fibrosis, making it a particularly important factor in the long-term prognosis of chronic hepatitis C. The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma increases along with progression of the stage. It is therefore vital to devise a treatment plan for preventing lesion progression, such as interferon therapy, after diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis. It has been shown that interferon therapy improves hepatic fibrosis and dramatically reduces the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma, so it is considered important to evaluate the stage of hepatic fibrosis over time even after completion of treatment. The importance of histological diagnosis by liver biopsy for the assessment of the stage of hepatic fibrosis is widely acknowledged. However, due to its invasive nature, liver biopsy is limited when constant monitoring of the time course of changes in hepatic fibrosis is required, and non-invasive tests should be performed as well. Measurement of platelet count and the determination of hepatic fibrosis markers are useful as non-invasive tests for evaluation of the liver fibrosis stage but the basic procedure for assessment of staging is the combined use of these tests with imaging diagnostic methods such as ultrasonography. Abdominal ultrasonography is the most useful imaging diagnostic technique for the assessment of chronic hepatitis. The indexes for assessment of staging include the presence or absence of change on the liver surface, deterioration of liver periphery, a decrease in the volume of the right hepatic lobe and increase in the volume of the left lobe, a coarse internal echo, and narrowing of the hepatic vein. However, for the assessment of staging in borderline cases, ordinary ultrasonography is limited because images |
File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.hitachi.co.jp/products/healthcare/products-support/contents/medix/pdf/supple/sup_07.pdf |
Language | English |
Access Restriction | Open |
Content Type | Text |
Resource Type | Article |