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  • Year in Review
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Liver fibrosis in 2015

Crucial steps towards an effective treatment

Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology volume 13, pages 67–68 (2016)Cite this article

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In 2015, new tools were developed to modulate fibroblast and macrophage activity to halt liver fibrogenesis and stimulate resolution. Essential factors for resolution were identified and clinical trials yielded potential new antifibrotic drugs. Although innovations were made this year, clinical trials are still hampered by the lack of methods to monitor disease progression.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of the architecture of the liver depicting intrahepatic cells and the newly discovered pathways involved in the regulation of fibrogenesis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Klaas Poelstra is at the Department of Pharmacokinetics, Toxicology & Targeting, University of Groningen, Antonius Deusinglaan 1, 9713 AV Groningen, Netherlands.,

    Klaas Poelstra

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  1. Klaas Poelstra
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Correspondence to Klaas Poelstra.

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Competing interests

K.P. is co-founder and minority shareholder in BiOrion Technologies. The antifibrotic compounds developed by BiOrion Technologies are not the subject of this Year-in-Review and are not mentioned in any other way in the article.

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Poelstra, K. Crucial steps towards an effective treatment. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 13, 67–68 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2015.224

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