Clinical Utility of Biomarkers of Liver Fibrosis.

Hepatic fibrogenesis is a dynamic process and reflects a balance between matrix synthesis and degradation. An accurate determination of hepatic fibrosis in chronic liver disease is important in determining prognosis, therapy outcomes, and disease progression. Needle liver biopsy is an invasive procedure that is associated with small sample size and inaccurate staging, and provides only a semiquantitative assessment of fibrosis. A number of simple and specific extracellular matrix biochemical markers predictive of fibrosis have been developed and validated in patients with chronic liver disease. Further improvements in these noninvasive approaches, incorporating emerging technologies such as proteomics and transient elastography, will likely provide more accurate and reliable measures of disease severity in these patients.