Navigating the Hepatic Immune Landscape With Fine Needle Aspiration of the Liver-An Emerging Technique.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Hepatic immune cell analysis is critical for understanding chronic inflammatory liver diseases, such as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and steatotic liver disease. However, liver immunoprofiling is limited due to reliance on end-stage disease liver explants. Fine needle aspiration (FNA) is a minimally invasive technique that can overcome these limitations. We evaluate the safety and efficacy of liver FNA to profile hepatic immune subsets in non-infectious liver conditions.

Methods

Flow cytometry and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) were used to compare the hepatic immune cell composition and gene expression to that of matched peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).

Results

We obtained liver FNAs from 38 patients. The median pain sco

SUBMITTER: Lynch KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12539073 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature