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AIMS: With changing indications for performing medical liver biopsies, we aimed to develop a tool to allow pathologists to evaluate the current usefulness, value and impact of their medical liver biopsy service. METHODS: We designed and piloted a questionnaire-based clinico-pathological audit for medical liver biopsies. RESULTS: The audit tool was simple to implement and provided useful information about our service. Hepatologists felt that 96% of reports were clinically useful. 56% of biopsies confirmed clinical diagnoses, 46% helped differentiate between diagnoses and 42% were able to exclude possible diagnoses. 74% resulted in a change of management and 27% of liver biopsies resulted in a diagnosis which was not clinically suspected. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate the usefulness of an audit tool in providing evidence of the value of the liver pathology service in a large UK regional centre.

Original publication

DOI

10.1136/jclinpath-2015-203023

Type

Journal article

Journal

J Clin Pathol

Publication Date

11/2015

Volume

68

Pages

935 - 937

Keywords

AUDIT, LIVER, QUALITY ASSURANCE, Biopsy, Humans, Liver, Liver Diseases, Medical Audit, Surveys and Questionnaires