الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Current AASLD guidelines recommend oesophagogastro- duodenoscopy (OGD) for patients with cirrhosis at diagnosis. However, OGD is semi-invasive, unacceptable for some patients and also carries a small risk of complications such as perforation, aspiration and bactermia.Worldwide, there is a hosis. Based on the concept that the dev elopment of portal hypertension is due to liver fibrosis--as the mostim portant factor contributing to the in creased hepatic resistance-- several clinical, biological, ultrason ographic and elastographic methods have been proposed as non invasive alternatives to endoscopy.Many current non invasive tests to predict oeso pha geal varices as variables related to liver functions, liver fibrosis, portal hype rtension, hyp ersplenism and predict tivescores were sudied but still not accurate enough to avoid screening endoscopy.Trans ient El astogr aphy (TE) and other imaging mod alities as ultrasound, CT and capsule endoscopy may be useful as screening tests to identify patients in whom required, but at present they can not be advocated as a surrogate for gastroscopy.Trans ient Elastogr aphy (TE) is a type of ultra sound machine that is design ned for painless, imm ediate and non invasive liver stif fness me asure ments. Liver sti ff ness mea sure ments using one-dime nsion T E was proven to accurately predict liver cirrhosis in a variety of clinical cond itions and in some studies correlate ed. The rela tionship between liver s tiffness and oesophageal varices was the subject of several studies, with confus ing results, varying from go od corre lation to no correlation at all.