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Researchers Develop Blood Test For Liver Damage

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Oct 14, 2008 6:21 pm US/Eastern

Researchers Develop Blood Test For Liver Damage

  Lorena Loarca will never forget hearing she was infected with hepatitis B.

"You may die of liver cancer or cirrhosis in 10, 15 years, and there's no cure for this disease. And this is the way that the doctor told me," she says.

Lorena's initial shock was replaced with a determination to hunt down answers.

"I started thinking, 'What if I become a scientist one day, and I found the cure for hepatitis B?!' I was, like, so naïve!"

Lorena did become a scientist. And though a cure has yet to be found, her colleagues at the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center have found a way to keep tabs on the liver with a simple blood test.

"If you have significant scarring of the liver or significant fibrosis, that measurement is higher in the blood."

The blood test looks for an antibody that only shows up in people with liver damage.

"And it turns out that the more liver disease you have, the more of this antibody in you, that there is."

The theory is that the antibody is targeting a bacterial sugar that's not getting cleaned out of the already-scarred liver.

"Suddenly it becomes much harder to clear this sugar, and, and you'll see more and more and more of these sugars accumulating, aggravating the liver disease."

The test, which at this point is still in research, will not replace a liver biopsy entirely. If the test turns out to be reliable, it could encourage more frequent liver monitoring and give doctors a way to check on how well treatment is working.

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