Identifying Compensated Advanced Chronic Liver Disease: When (Not) to Start Screening for Varices and Clinically Significant Portal Hypertension

Abstract

In chronic liver disease management, the emergence of noninvasive tests, mainly transient elastography, to estimate liver fibrosis has resulted in a major impact in daily clinical practice, in the epidemiology of chronic liver disease, and it is challenging some of the current recommendations for liver cirrhosis. In this chapter, we will explain the importance of the use of TE in the management of severe chronic liver disease, we will also propose a new term to adequately describe these patients detected in the early phases of advanced chronic liver disease, and we will provide simple rules to avoid unnecessary procedures in such patients.