A promising blood based marker test for monitoring and prognosis of alcoholic liver patients
SRL Diagnostics, has introduced a blood test to diagnose fibrosis in alcoholic liver. Introduced at a price of Rs 3900, this non –invasive test has high degree of accuracy in diagnosing liver damage due to alcohol.
Dr Arnab, Deputy General Manager & Senior Research Scientist R & D, SRL Limited said, “We are proud to announce the launch of an innovative blood based test to diagnose the stage of damage to liver due to alcohol consumption. Alcoholic liver disease is the most common cause of liver damage in India, therefore, there is a significant need for reaching out to people and letting them know about the importance to diagnose this disease at an early stage. The test is price effective and we have launched it for the first time in India. In this test, few milliliters of blood are collected and multiple tests are performed on the same. The results of the tests are fed into a mathematical algorithm, which gives out the stage of liver damage.”
According to the World Health Organization, 4.5 per cent of Indian men and 0.6 per cent of Indian women aged 15 years or more suffer from alcohol use disorders. Also, 395 men and 196 women out of every million population in India die of liver cirrhosis every year. According to estimates by SRL, alcoholic liver disease is a spectrum of disorders starting with fatty liver, which progresses to hepatitis and if alcohol consumption is unabated, it progresses to cirrhosis in 20 per cent of cases. Approximately, two-thirds of such deaths amongst men and one-thirds amongst women are attributable to alcohol related diseases.
There are various modalities to examine the extent of liver damage like liver biopsy, imaging based tests, but this is the first blood based test that SRL has introduced to assess the disease.
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