Laboratory diagnosis of liver disease in small animal practice

Today’s accurate diagnosis of disease requires using of different diagnostic and paraclinical methods. Diagnosis of liver disease was a serious challenge both in medicine and veterinary medicine from the past. Clinical biochemistry is one of the main parts of diagnostic methods. Liver function is evaluated by measuring the variables such as excreting and metabolic functions and enzymes. Because of large functional reserve of liver, symptoms of liver disease appear after loss of huge number of hepatocytes, therefore using of laboratory methods with high specificity and sensitivity could be helpful. None of existing laboratory methods has all characteristics mentioned above. It seems that using different laboratory methods of liver function beside other diagnostic methods such as sonography, cytology and … could be an appropriate approach for reaching a diagnosis of hepatobiliary disease. Current article reviews the perfect utility of liver function tests for general diagnosis of liver disease.