Our ultimate goal is to reduce mortality and morbidity from liver disease. We therefore aim to set up a targeted, easy-to-use, cost-beneficial screening program for detection of liver fibrosis in high-risk groups within the general population, using transient elastography as screening tool.

Liverscreen project will screen a total of 30.000 people recruited from different european countries. By analysing the results from the 30.000 subjects recruited, the Liverscreen consortium can validate the diagnostic accuracy, cost-effectiveness and acceptability of using the TE technology to case-find advanced liver fibrosis in the general population. Moreover, LiverScreen will assess the prevalence of liver fibrosis within certain subpopulations based on health risk factors and will use this knowledge to fine-tune the case-finding. At project completion, we aim to have a targeted, population-based screening intervention program for chronic liver diseases in Europe, ready for implementation. The LiverScreen project will achieve its goal by the following specific sub-objectives:

1. Validate the diagnostic accuracy of TE to screen for liver fibrosis in the general population and primary care, using liver biopsy as gold standard
2. Assess the prevalence of significant fibrosis as evidenced by increased liver stiffness in the general population and stratified according to subjects at risk for liver fibrosis
3. Identify optimal screening intervals and define population subgroups at highest risk of progressive liver fibrosis with the aim to design the ideal screening strategy
4. Create a medical-decision support prognostic model (in form of a digital tool) of liver fibrosis and estimate the long-term effects of screening for chronic liver disease
5. Estimate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of the screening program for different populations or groups and the budget impact for healthcare systems
6. Develop and evaluate a tailored screening program for four pilot EU countries, representative of the different European healthcare systems