[Current role of biopsy in the diagnosis of hepatic disease]

The criteria for the use of liver biopsy as a diagnostic tool were retrospectively analyzed over a ten-year period in 390 consecutive patients. The four principal conditions in which this procedure was employed were alcoholism (33%), hepatitis (18%), abnormal hepatic tests (16%) and tumors (10%). The development of new, "non-invasive", investigative methods such as echography and tomodensitometry has led to an decrease in the number of liver biopsies performed annually, but no change in the relative frequency of the various indications. In this paper, evidence is presented which demonstrates that hepatic biopsy confirmed the clinical diagnosis in 62.4% of the cases reviewed and fundamentally modified the diagnosis in 20.2%. Based upon these findings, it can be concluded that liver biopsy remains an indispensable diagnostic procedure in the field of hepatology, since it can result in modification of the clinician's diagnosis in one out of five cases.