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The fact that liver
biopsy is carried out using a fine needle does not guarantee the confirmation of the
diagnosis of a macrondular cirrhosis due to nodes larger than 3 mm and uneven distribution
of regenerating nodes. In this case, the biopsy may reveal minor fibrous changes and
normal liver lobules. It is known that it is much harder to draw fibrous tissue in the
needle and the bioptate may contain an insufficient amount of fibrous tissue. The value of
the biopsy is also limited by the variable quality of the obtained sample of liver tissue
that should be at least 10 mm a length [9]. Due to this, the obtained biological material
could be unfit for the diagnosis purposes [33]. Besides, for a number of patients, it is
virtually impossible to perform liver biopsy due to some contraindications, such as
hemophilia, liver hemangioma, thrombocytopenia, mental instability with phobias, etc.
Thus, the applicability of liver biopsy is limited by potential serious complications up
to the lethal ones, sampling errors, interobserver variability, and errors in the
interpretation of the results. |