Postgraduate Course
Diagnostics in Liver Diseases
About the Postgraduate Course 2026
Diagnostics are not merely simple tools for confirming disease: they actively shape the way medicine is practiced and the way we perceive patients. Each new test or technology does more than provide additional information, it changes clinical pathways, alters decision-making, and redefines how diseases are classified and managed.
This postgraduate course will explore both the present and the future of diagnostics in hepatology. Participants will gain an updated view of how current diagnostic strategies inform patient care today, while also discussing the emerging tools, from advanced imaging and genetics to artificial intelligence (AI), that are likely to reshape hepatology in the years to come.
Meet the Organisers
Maxime Ronot
Prof. Maxime Ronot, is affiliated with the Université Paris-Cité and is the Head of the Department of Medical Imaging at Beaujon University Hospital in Clichy, France.
Specializing in abdominal imaging, he focuses on liver and pancreas diseases and tumors, interventional abdominal oncology, and abdominal vascular diseases. He holds memberships in various prominent French and European radiology societies, including the French and European Societies of Radiology and the European Society of Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology (ESGAR). He is a member of the LI-RADS steering committee. In this capacity, he chairs the LI-RADS benign liver lesions group. Prof. Ronot has authored or coauthored over 400 articles and books.
Furthermore, he serves as the president of the French national ethics committee for medical imaging research.
Dina Tiniakos
Dina Tiniakos is Professor of Pathology, Director of the Dept of Pathology, Aretaieion Hospital, Medical School, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece and Visiting Professor, Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, UK. She is Past President of the European Society of Pathology (ESP) and current Chair, ESP Advisory Board.
Dina is an expert liver pathologist and invited member of the prestigious International Liver Study Group “Gnomes” and the Laennec Liver Pathology Society. Her main research interests are steatotic and autoimmune liver disease and liver carcinoma. Dina has authored/co-authored ~240 peer-reviewed scientific articles and chapters in textbooks of liver pathology (H index 68, ~24,000 citations). She is Associate Editor for pathology in “Journal of Hepatology” and Editorial Board member of “Liver International” and “Annals of Gastroenterology”.
Emmanuel Tsochatzis
Prof. Emmanuel Tsochatzis (MD, MSc, FEBTM, FRCP, PhD) is Professor of Hepatology and Consultant Hepatologist at the UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, Royal Free Hospital, London, where he serves as Head of the Centre for Metabolic Liver Disease and leads the specialist multidisciplinary service in MASLD. His clinical and research interests focus on MASLD, the non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis, and cirrhosis. He has designed and implemented the first two-step primary care pathway for MASLD referrals to secondary care, a model that has since shaped numerous international guidelines. He is an active member of the Baveno steering committee for portal hypertension and leads a dynamic research program with competitive funding from NIHR, MRC, EASL and the EU Horizon 2020 framework. He has published more than 400 articles in peer-reviewed journals, with an h-index of 84, and has held prominent leadership roles within the EASL, serving on the Governing Board (2019–2022) and as Chair of the Scientific Committee (2021–2022). He is currently Associate Editor of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Discover the Programme
Session 1. Introduction: Which are the main diagnostic tools, and how do we use them?
This session sets the stage by addressing the fundamentals: how diagnostic accuracy is evaluated, what the modern role of liver biopsy is, how imaging and genetics are integrated, and how these tools influence patient care.
Session 2. Diagnostics in MASLD
Focusing on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, this session will cover the spectrum from case finding to treatment response. Faculty will present the strengths and limitations of non-invasive tests (NITs) as biomarkers, their potential to replace biopsy in clinical trials, and their role in guiding therapy and predict clinical outcomes. This session will use MASLD to illustrate how a shift in diagnostics leads to a shift in mindset and clinical strategy.
Session 3. Advanced Chronic Liver Disease
From “cirrhosis” to “advanced chronic liver disease”, hepatology has shifted from a pathological ontology to a clinico-epidemiological construct focusing also on real-world data and outcomes rather than solely on laboratory findings. This session will explore how these shifts in diagnostics have changed clinical practice from lesion-based certainty to risk-based probability, from binary categories to continuum models, and from static to dynamic concepts. Questioning the relationship between liver histology, elastography, imaging, and other NITs, the faculty will discuss diagnosis, prognostication and HCC surveillance.
Session 4. Where are we going: Next-generation diagnostics
To finish, this forward-looking session will explore the frontier of diagnostics. Topics will include AI-powered histopathology, proteomics and metabolomics for molecular signatures, computational imaging and digital twins, and the rise of “connected patients” through wearables, sensors, and remote follow-up. Together, these tools invite us to imagine a future where hepatology is less about isolated tests and more about continuous, integrated, computationally driven medicine. Are we talking about sophisticated gadgets, or are we witnessing transformative innovations that will redefine hepatology altogether?
