Optical Diagnosis of Fatty Liver Diseases

Abstract

Recently, the prevalence of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is increasing in Japan. NASH increases the risk of liver related death, cardiovascular event and liver cancer. Liver biopsy is needed to diagnose the disease, however, new diagnostic methods were required, because the biopsy is an invasive procedure. In this review, the author will discuss the studies of the optical diagnosis of fatty liver disease, and introduce our applied research of diffuse reflectance spectroscopy for in vivo mice liver.