Screening in liver disease

Table 1 Characteristics of the most common liver diseases and feasibility of screening

	Hepatitis C	Hepatitis B	Fatty liver	Hemochromatosis
Disease common and causing morbidity/mortality	Yes	Yes	Common, but increased mortality only if advanced NASH	Common, but only 1% of screened population with complications[13]
Target population identifiable	High risk groups	High risk groups	Obese, diabetics	Northern European ancestry
Screening test	HCV Antibody test	HBsAg test	Ultrasound	Transferrin saturation or genetic testing (unsettled)
Performance of test	Good	Good	Low PPV and NPV for fibrosis	Under investigation
Effective therapy	50% cure[14]	4%-24% HBsAg loss, 70% no progression[15,16]	Only lifestyle modification	Yes, but may be unnecessary