What Is Liver Diease?

Liver disease is one of the most common chronic diseases in the United States. Hepatitis C and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis are the two most common forms of liver disease, affecting 1.8 and 2-3% of the general population. In addition, a number of other forms of chronic liver diseases such as hepatitis B, genetic hemochromatosis, autoimmune hepatitis, alcoholic liver diseases, and drug induced liver disease affect a large number of patients. Of these, 20% are expected to progress to cirrhosis.

Over the last few decades, the impact of liver disease has increasingly been recognized as the diagnosis and management options expanded rapidly. Novel and sophisticated treatment options have become available as the direct consequence of unprecedented breakthroughs from the basic and clinical research. In the dawn of this new millennium, a number of these gains from research have been translated into heath care advances for patients with liver disease.

The Center for Liver Diseases at Inova Fairfax Hospital and the Center for the Study of Genomics in Liver Diseases at George Mason University were established to address this growing need for cutting-edge translational research in patients with liver disease. As a result of close collaborations, members of both Centers have become international leaders in the area of genomics and proteomics research in fatty liver, hepatitis C and obesity.