Pregnancy increases liver stiffness and normalizes after delivery

Background: Several life threatening but poorly understood hepatic complications are associated with pregnancy such as the HELLP syndrome, pregnancy-related cholestasis, fatty liver or eclampsia. Liver stiffness (LS) has evolved as a novel important diagnostic parameter for liver disease that could be ideal for screening of hepatic complications during pregnancy. We here performed a first pilot study on LS in more than 100 pregnant women. Methods: LS was measured in 103 pregnant women in the second and third trimester who presented during routine follow up of pregnancy. LS was measured by Fibroscan either using…