GPs could soon be giving patients they suspect of having liver damage a simple ‘traffic light’ blood test to confirm their suspicions.
4:35PM BST 29 Aug 2012
Nurses in GP surgeries would perform the blood test, which checks for telltale signs of liver damage. Photo: Alamy
Scientists hope the UK-developed test will mean thousands more people are diagnosed with liver problems while there is still time to do something about it.
The test, created by Southampton University and the city’s general hospital, looks for telltale signs in the blood of liver scarring.
Liver disease develops without symptoms, and many people have no idea they have liver failure until it is too late.
Researchers say the test can diagnose disease much earlier, enabling those at risk to change their behaviour which could save their lives.
They said that while it should not be a substitute for clinical judgment or other tests, it could help GPs determine the potential severity of liver disease in high risk patients such as heavy drinkers, those with type 2 diabetes or the obese.
Nurses could take blood from those doctors recommend to be tested one week, for them to return for the results the next.
If a patient gets a green score in the Southampton Traffic Lights test they are highly unlikely to die from liver disease over the next five years.
Amber means they might have liver scarring while red means it probably already exists.
Dr Nick Sheron, head of clinical hepatology at the university, said at the moment GPs did not have the tools to spot liver disease early enough.
He said: "We hope that this type of test for liver scarring may start to change this because the earlier we can detect liver disease, the more liver deaths we should be able to prevent."
Dr Michael Moore, a GP, who contributed to the study, published in the British Journal of General Practice, said: “In primary care, minor abnormalities of existing liver tests are quite common but we struggle to know how best to investigate these further and who warrants specialist intervention.
"The traffic light test has the advantage of highlighting those at highest risk who should be investigated further and those in whom the risk is much lower where a watchful approach is more appropriate.”
The test has been successfully piloted on 1,000 patients.
Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, said the test “may prove really useful for guiding the right patients towards specialist care in a timely way."
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