With Hepatitis C and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease being a healthcare issue of significant proportions to baby boomers, the availability of noninvasive tests to evaluate the degree of liver injury has become quite commonplace. But how accurate are these tests? Liver enzymes are notoriously inaccurate at determining the degree of either injury or scarring. Liver biopsy is the gold standard, but not without risk and it is certainly somewhat invasive. A study that evaluated the use of three noninvasive fibrosis scores in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease showed they had low accuracy in certain populations, researchers reported in The American Journal of Gastroenterology. The study analyzed aminotransferase/alanine transaminase ratio, Fibrosis-4 score and NAFLD fibrosis score.

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