The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released the trans-NIH "Action Plan for Liver Disease Research," a comprehensive plan that addresses the burden of liver diseases in the United States and maps out challenges for future research.

"Over the last 25 years medical research in liver disease has greatly improved the survival and quality-of-life of patients with liver disease," Allen M. Spiegel, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the NIH institute with lead responsibility for drafting the plan said adding, "This trans-NIH plan summarizes challenges to advancing liver disease research and delineates the major goals for future research."

Goals of the Action Plan for Liver Disease Research include: Improving the success rate of therapy of hepatitis C; Developing non-invasive ways to measure liver fibrosis; Developing sensitive and specific means of screening individuals at high risk for early hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer);
Developing standardized and objective diagnostic criteria of major liver diseases and their grading and staging; Decreasing the mortality rate from liver disease.

Liver disease is an important cause of sickness and death in the United States. According to statistics from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), liver and biliary (gallbladder) disease, including liver cancer, accounts for about 46,000 deaths each year and ranks ninth in overall causes of death.

Jay H. Hoofnagle, director, NIDDK's Liver Disease Research Branch said, "The major focus of this Action Plan is to stimulate translation of basic research findings to practical and effective means of prevention and control of liver diseases, including such important conditions as hepatitis B and C, biliary atresia, liver cancer, alcoholic and nonalcoholic fatty liver, primary biliary cirrhosis, and autoimmune hepatitis. The explosion of knowledge about fundamental biology and genetics in the past 20 years now promises to provide significant improvements in management of liver disease and specific prevention of many of these important causes of disease and mortality among Americans."

In 2003, the NIH created the Liver Disease Research Branch to focus and accelerate research on liver disease at the NIDDK and to coordinate liver-related research across the NIH and among other federal agencies. The Branch worked with the Liver Disease Subcommittee of the congressionally authorized Digestive Diseases Interagency Coordinating Committee to coordinate the drafting of the Action Plan.

Along with introductory and summary statements, each chapter of the Action Plan includes a background section, a summary of recent advances, a central section describing important future research goals, and a final section that outlines active steps to achieve each goal. A total of 214 research goals identified in the Action Plan are categorized by their degree of difficulty and time frame, with several research goals overlapping. The Action Plan also includes an implementation plan and a list of benchmark goals that will be used to gauge its effectiveness and success.

The Action Plan is available on-line at http://liverplan.niddk.nih.gov.