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Review
. 2023 Oct 29;13(11):1115.
doi: 10.3390/metabo13111115.

Advances in Noninvasive Biomarkers for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Georgiana-Emmanuela Gîlcă-Blanariu  1   2 , Daniela Simona Budur  1 , Dana Elena Mitrică  1   2 , Elena Gologan  1 , Oana Timofte  1   2 , Gheorghe Gh Bălan  1   2 , Vasile Andrei Olteanu  1   2 , Gabriela Ștefănescu  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Advances in Noninvasive Biomarkers for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Georgiana-Emmanuela Gîlcă-Blanariu et al. Metabolites. .

Abstract

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) currently represents one of the most common liver diseases worldwide. Early diagnosis and disease staging is crucial, since it is mainly asymptomatic, but can progress to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) or cirrhosis or even lead to the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. Over time, efforts have been put into developing noninvasive diagnostic and staging methods in order to replace the use of a liver biopsy. The noninvasive methods used include imaging techniques that measure liver stiffness and biological markers, with a focus on serum biomarkers. Due to the impressive complexity of the NAFLD's pathophysiology, biomarkers are able to assay different processes involved, such as apoptosis, fibrogenesis, and inflammation, or even address the genetic background and "omics" technologies. This article reviews not only the currently validated noninvasive methods to investigate NAFLD but also the promising results regarding recently discovered biomarkers, including biomarker panels and the combination of the currently validated evaluation methods and serum markers.

Keywords: biomarkers; fibrosis; markers; nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; nonalcoholic steatohepatitis; serological markers.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
An overview of the mechanisms involved in NAFLD and progression to NASH, pointing to the potential biomarkers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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