Biopsy of the Tissue of the Liver

Abstract

Since Iversen and Roholm¹⁾ introduced needle biopsy technique to clinical medicine, histologic examination of the liver obtained by biopsy has been regarded as one of the most important procedures to make diagnosis and estimate prognosis of the liver diseases. However, the histologic diagnosis on the liver specimen obtained by biopsy are not infrequently controversial as yet. Beside this problem, needle biopsy technique has diagnostic limitation in cases of circumscribed liver diseases and in some cases of cirrhosis because of the tiny specimen obtained. Furthermore, clinical application of biopsy technique occasionally reveals discrepancy between histologic changes of the liver and liver function tests.
Observation was made to clarify these problems such as differential diagnosis, correlation between histologic changes and liver function tests, limitation of biopsy technique and incidence of liver diseases in Japan, based on histologic examination of 1, 600 biopsy specimens obtained since 1952.