[Role of liver biopsy in the assessment of hepatic fibrosis--its utility and limitations].

Hepatic fibrosis and cirrhosis are the consequences of many types of chronic liver disease. The precise quantification of fibrosis is important to predict the prognosis and monitor the response of treatment modality. The liver biopsy has a role to estimate the stage of fibrosis. However, its sensitivity is below 80%. Its use is limited by sampling errors, inter- and intraobserver variability and possible morbidity and mortality. There is increasing attention to developing clinical algorithms and new noninvasive alternative techniques to predict the stage of fibrosis. However none of these can replace the utility of liver biopsy in the intermediate stage of hepatic fibrosis. Therefore, the liver biopsy is still the "gold standard" to assess the precise stage of hepatic fibrosis.