Diagnostic Methods for Cirrhosis and Portal Hypertension

Annalisa Berzigotti graduated in Medicine, specialised in Internal Medicine and completed a doctorate in Ultrasound in Medicine at the University of Bologna, Italy. She focused on liver disease early in her career, and earned further clinical and research experience in hepatology at the Hepatic Hemodynamic Laboratory of the Liver Unit, Hospital Clinic, University of Barcelona, Spain where  she worked as a clinical researcher in 2008-2014 obtaining a doctorate on clinical aspects of portal hypertension. Since December 2014 she is staff hepatologist at the University Clinic of Visceral Surgery and Medicine (UVCM) of the Inselspital, University of Berne, Switzerland. In 2016, Annalisa Berzigotti was appointed as Associate Professor of Hepatology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Berne. In 2016 she has also been appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Belgrade. Her main research interest focuses on clinical and diagnostic aspects of chronic liver disease; in this field she extensively worked on the invasive and non-invasive assessment of cirrhosis and portal hypertension. She was member of the Scientific Committee of the Baveno VI consensus conference on the management of portal hypertension, and developed the EFSUMB recommendations on reporting of ultrasound in portal hypertension. Since 2016 she is member of the Scientific Committee, Governing Board of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). She is Associate Editor of Digestive and Liver Disease and of Seminars in Liver Disease. She is author/co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed original and review articles and of 15 book chapters on portal hypertension-related aspects.  Jaime Bosch graduated in Medicine with honours in 1970 at the University of Barcelona Medical School, where he specialized in Internal Medicine in 1974 and in Gastroenterology in 1979. He obtained a doctorate in Medicine with honours at the University of Barcelona in1973. He is member of the Liver Unit of the Hospital Clinic in Barcelona since 1979. In 1980-81 he did a postdoctoral stage at Yale University, working under the direction of Prof RJ Groszmann. Back in Barcelona in 1982 he founded the Hepatic Hemodynamic Laboratory at the Barcelona Liver Unit, where over 100 international fellows have been trained.From 2006 to 2015 he was Scientific Director of the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas (Ciberehd), Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain. He is full Professor of Medicine at the University of Barcelona and Guest Professor at the University of Berne. Dr. Bosch is a worldwide recognized opinion-leader in the field of portal hypertension and cirrhosis, having authored over 400 publications in peer-reviewed international journals in all the branches of this area (H index 102). For his scientific merits, in 2006 Dr. Bosch was awarded the Special Recognition Award, European Association for the Study of the Liver, the Gold Medal of the Canadian Association for the Study of the Liver in 2012. In 2014 he was awarded PhD Honoris Causa, School of Medicine, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France, and in 2016 he was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa, Medical University Iuliu Hațieganu, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

“This book aims to describe the current state of the art with respect to the many significant advances in the diagnostic techniques used to evaluate the liver in patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension (PHT). … The book’s target audience includes hepatologists/ gastroentereologists, as well as radiologists, pathologists and surgeons with a special interest in cirrhosis.” (Zahir Amin, RAD Magazine, February, 2019)

• Introduction.- Cirrhosis and portal hypertension: natural history and prognosis.-Part I:Gold-standard invasive diagnostic methods.- Liver Biopsy.- Hepatic venous pressure measurement.- Endoscopy.- Part 2: non-invasive diagnostic methods.- Non-invasive serum markers of fibrosis.-  Ultrasound elastography: general and technical overview.-  Liver stiffness by ultrasound (transient) elastography.- Spleen stiffness by ultrasound elastography.-  Magnetic resonance elastography.- Imaging: ultrasound and Doppler ultrasound.-  Contrast-enhanced ultrasound and dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound.- Subharmonic aided pressure estimation (SHAPE).-  Endoscopic ultrasound.-  Computerised Tomography.- Magnetic resonance imaging (including dynamic flow assessment).- Part 3: invasive and non-invasive diagnostic methods in special conditions Budd-Chiari Syndrome.- Portal vein thrombosis andExtrahepatic portal vein obstruction- An Asian and Global Perspective.- Idiopathic portal hypertension.-  Rendu-Osler disease and Artero-venous fistulae.- Pediatric population.