Summary
A series of clinical steps in the severity of chronic liver disease (CLD) has been arranged to represent the case history of chronic active hepatitis and cirrhosis retrospectively. The ‘steps’ in such series of clinical stages have been chosen on the basis of physiopathological considerations, the state of health of the patients, and their ability to work. For every ‘step’ the laboratory findings were studied in order to verify the hypothesis that a laboratory case history exists, which is parallel to the clinical history of CLD. With the exception of serum albumin and, to a lesser extent, sulfobromophthalein-k, which seem to reflect the progressive deterioration in hepatocellular function, the results suggest that most conventional tests do not seem to be of any value in monitoring a CLD patients in cases where the diagnosis is already known, whereas a physical examination provides a physician with more, and cheaper, information than laboratory tests.
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Cozzolino, G., Francica, C., Lonardo, A. et al. Lack of correlation between the laboratory findings and a series of steps in the clinical severity of chronic liver disease. La Ricerca Clin. Lab. 14, 641–648 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02906304
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02906304