Efficacy of serum laminin measurement for diagnosis of fibrotic liver diseases.

We examined the efficacy of laminin assay in serum for diagnosis of fibrotic liver diseases. Values for subjects with liver disease significantly (P less than 0.05) exceeded those for healthy subjects and patients with nonhepatic diseases. At a cutoff value of 1.45 kilo-units(arb.)/L (approximately 330 micrograms/L) and an assumed prevalence of fibrotic liver diseases of 0.5, positive and negative predictive values of the test were 0.97 and 0.83, respectively, for the comparison with a healthy reference population and 0.81 and 0.80 for nonhepatic diseased patients. Increases in laminin concentration were positively correlated with the extent of fibrotic transition of the liver. Discrimination between fibrotic and cirrhotic stages of chronic liver diseases by means of laminin assay was better than with the amino-terminal propeptide of type III procollagen. According to the criteria of diagnostic efficacy, we conclude that determination of laminin in serum improves the possibilities of clinical-chemical diagnosis of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. However, as commonly true for other biochemical tests, determination of laminin cannot replace conventional diagnostic methods.