Is fasting required for liver disease examination?

It seems that everyone has gone through a physical examination. However, there are certain precautions for physical examinations. Some examinations must be performed on an empty stomach, such as blood tests. If you are not on an empty stomach, it may affect the results of the examination. Many people do not know whether they need to fast when they go to the hospital for a liver function test. Regarding this issue of liver disease physical examination, the following article gives you a detailed introduction, and I hope it will be helpful to everyone.

Do I need to fast for liver function test?

When checking liver function, we need to draw blood for testing while fasting. And the fasting time is generally between 8 and 12 hours. During this period of time, we must not eat, and of course we cannot drink water.

Why do we need to fast to check liver function? Because once we eat, we will stimulate the gallbladder, and the bile secreted by the gallbladder will be absorbed by the body together with the food we eat and the digested protein, which will cause an increase in total bilirubin in the snow. Of course, there may also be an increase in transaminase, which will affect the accuracy of our test results.

Now let’s talk about the issue of drinking water. Although drinking water does not have a greater impact than eating, it will more or less affect the fluctuation of values ​​and the accuracy of the test results. Therefore, we must not eat or drink water before the examination.

In addition to fasting before checking liver function, we also need to not eat high-fat foods within three days, not drink alcohol within 24 hours, and mainly eat light meals.

Which department should I go to for liver function test?

This depends on what kind of hospital you go to. If you go to a general hospital for treatment, you need to go to the internal medicine department or the infectious disease department. If you go to a specialized hospital for liver disease, you can just go directly to the liver department.

However, if you suspect that you have a liver disease, it is recommended that you go to a professional liver hospital for examination, because the examination results of specialized hospitals are more accurate than those of general hospitals. And their equipment and medicines are more complete than those in general hospitals.

If you just want to get tested or treated, you can go to any department. But if you have been diagnosed with liver disease, please go to the liver disease department or go to a professional, regular liver disease hospital for treatment.

In short, for patients with liver disease, a correct test result and an authoritative, regular hospital will do more good than harm to your liver disease treatment. The treatment effect will be better than that of a general hospital, and recovery will be faster, so it is recommended that you go to a specialized and regular liver disease hospital for treatment, and don’t just care about which department you go to.

What are the four liver function tests?

The four items of liver function test are actually the four items of liver fibrosis. The first major test is IV-C (type IV collagen). This item mainly reflects the degree of liver fibrosis, and can also facilitate doctors to further diagnose the early symptoms of liver fibrosis.

The second item checked is PCIII (type III procollagen). The serum PCIII level is closely related to the degree of liver fibrosis and can reflect the state of liver fiber synthesis and the activity of inflammation. If your condition improves, PCII will decrease, otherwise it will increase.

The third item checked is LN (laminin). It increases significantly in chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and primary liver cancer. In addition, the degree of liver fibrosis activity is positively correlated with the pressure of the portal vein.

The fourth item is HA (hyaluronidase). This kind of examination can more accurately and sensitively reflect the amount of fibers formed in our liver and the condition of liver cell damage. It can also help doctors to understand the development trend of liver disease. In fact, it is a quantitative indicator to determine whether there is active liver fibrosis.

Can liver function tests detect hepatitis B?

What we commonly call liver function test is the four items I mentioned above. If you want to detect hepatitis B, or do a test for hepatitis B, you must do the five tests for hepatitis B to find out. If it is just a normal liver function test, it can only reflect your condition.

Another question is that if you want to confirm whether you are a carrier of the hepatitis B virus, then you must further undergo five hepatitis B tests and do them regularly. If any abnormalities are found, you should actively treat your own condition to avoid further deterioration of the condition.

The five items of hepatitis B test are mainly used to check whether the patient himself has been infected with hepatitis B, or the specific situation after being infected. Among them, the hepatitis B virus, once infected, is widely present in our blood, saliva, genital secretions, breast milk during lactation, and male semen.

Therefore, when checking liver function, you might as well do a five-item hepatitis B test at the same time to further confirm the diagnosis.

Things to note before checking liver function

1. When checking liver function, the first thing to do is to be on an empty stomach. We need to go to the hospital in the morning to draw blood for testing, so we must be on an empty stomach to know the test results.

2. Before doing a liver function test, you must pay attention to adequate rest, ensure your sleep, and avoid strenuous activities, let alone drinking alcohol. Because strenuous exercise can affect the normal value of transaminase, drinking can also affect the normal value of transaminase.

3. Before the liver function test, there are some medicines that we cannot take, such as vitamin D and atilamine, which will affect the determination of the jaundice index. In addition, if you take drugs containing opium, it may lead to an increase in the activity of transaminase, thus affecting the accuracy of our liver function test.

4. Do not eat carrots before a liver function test, because carrots are rich in carotene, which can affect the bilirubin index, resulting in an inaccurate test result.

5. Since our liver function test report is very complicated to analyze, in addition to paying attention to the above knowledge, you must listen to your doctor.