Liver cirrhosis as a major clinical problem worldwide and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality from its complications, such as liver cell insufficiency with coagulopathy and hepatic encephalopathy, portal hypertension with ascites and gastrointestinal bleeding, hepatorenal syndrome, HCC development and others. Based on this information, strategies are discussed that are aimed at the prevention, early diagnosis and therapy of chronic liver diseases, thus preventing their progression to cirrhosis and its complications, including HCC development.
Liver biopsy, now taken for granted as a major diagnosis tool, was not generally accepted as a safe procedure until 1958 when Menghini popularized the 'one second' aspiration needle technique. Serum aminotransferases, now routinely used as liver tests to screen for hepatic abnormalities, also came into use only in the late 1950s through the work af LaDue and colleagues. Viral hepatitis, previously thought to result from a catarrh obstruction in the extrahepatic biliary tree, was not recognized as an infectious disease until the middle of this century through pioneering work of Saul Krugman and many others.
Liver biopsy, now taken for granted as a major diagnosis tool, was not generally accepted as a safe procedure until 1958 when Menghini popularized the 'one second' aspiration needle technique. Serum aminotransferases, now routinely used as liver tests to screen for hepatic abnormalities, also came into use only in the late 1950s through the work af LaDue and colleagues. Viral hepatitis, previously thought to result from a catarrh obstruction in the extrahepatic biliary tree, was not recognized as an infectious disease until the middle of this century through pioneering work of Saul Krugman and many others.