The assessment of liver fibrosis provides useful information not only for diagnosis but also for therapeutic decision. Although needle biopsy of the liver is the gold standard for fibrosis assessment, it has some technical limitations and risks. This has led to the development of noninvasive biochemical markers of liver fibrosis: direct markers which reflect extracellular matrix turnover and in...

BACKGROUND In response to liver injury, hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation causes excessive liver fibrosis. Here we show that activation of RSK and phosphorylation of C/EBPbeta on Thr217 in activated HSC is critical for the progression of liver fibrosis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Chronic treatment with the hepatotoxin CCl(4) induced severe liver fibrosis in C/EBPbeta(+/+) mice but no...

Liver fibrosis is the generic response to chronic injury of varying aetiologies. A number of common mechanisms link this response to the pathogenesis of fibrosis in other organs. While long thought to be relentlessly progressive, there is now excellent evidence in both human liver disease and animal models that hepatic fibrosis is potentially reversible. The liver therefore provides an excellen...

Chronic liver Injury (CLI) and its end-stages, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), are leading causes of morbidity mortality worldwide with enormous socioeconomic costs. Clinical management chronic injury is dependent on the extent fibrosis. Liver biopsy, gold standard, still recommended in most patients. disease diagnosis can generally be made using a carefully obtained history, physica...

Liver fibrosis evaluation is very important for treatment and prognosis in patients with chronic liver disease. The "gold-standard" method for liver fibrosis assessment is still considered to be the liver biopsy, but in the last years non-invasive methods have increasingly been used, especially ultrasound based elastographic ones. The oldest and the only validated elastographic method for non-i...

0

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the predictors for advanced liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection with persistently normal alanine aminotransferase (PNALT), or persistently or intermittently mildly elevated ALT (PIEALT). A total of 305 patients were included in the present study. Liver biopsies were evaluated using the METAVIR scoring system. Liv...

BACKGROUND Liver biopsy is the reference standard for assessing liver fibrosis and no reliable non-invasive diagnostic approach is available to discriminate between the intermediate stages of fibrosis. Therefore suitable serological biomarkers of liver fibrosis are urgently needed. We used proteomics to identify novel fibrosis biomarkers in hepatitis C patients with different degrees of liver f...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection can predispose to the development of insulin resistance before diabetes occurs. Such a potential link is particularly cogent in light of recent data indicate that diabetes may be associated with increased hepatic fibrosis progression in patients with chronic HCV infection. The aim of the study is to determine the prevalence of insulin resistance in n...

Objective Liver fibrosis is the primary sign of chronic liver injury induced by various causes. Thymoquinone (TQ) is the major ingredient of Nigella sativa with several beneficial effects on the body. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effect of TQ on liver fibrosis in a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammation in male rats. Materials and methods Fifty male Wistar rats wer...