Method for assessment of hepatic function and portal blood flow

A method of risk assessment for determining liver disease severity, disease progression, stage of disease, disease prognosis, fibrosis stage, and/or response to treatment in a patient having, suspected of having, or at risk of having a chronic liver disease, comprising

• receiving a sample consisting of a single blood or serum sample from the patient obtained at a single, specific time point less than 3 hours after oral administration of a single distinguishable agent to the patient, wherein no other distinguishable agent is intravenously co-administered, wherein the distinguishable agent is capable of exhibiting hepatic extraction of at least 60% in first pass through the liver of a healthy subject following oral administration, and wherein the distinguishable agent is a distinguishable bile acid or bile acid conjugate;
• measuring the concentration of the distinguishable agent in the sample, wherein the measuring comprises quantifying the concentration of the distinguishable agent in the sample by GC-MS, LC-MS, scintillation spectroscopy, autoanalyzer, luminescence, or ELISA;
• and
• comparing the concentration of the distinguishable agent in the sample to a cutoff value or cutoffs of values from a known patient population(s), and/or to the concentration of the distinguishable agent in one or more earlier samples from the same patient over time, wherein the concentration of distinguishable agent in the sample compared to the cutoff value or cutoffs of values from a known patient population(s), and/or to the concentration of the distinguishable agent in one or more earlier samples from the same patient over time is an estimation of portal blood flow in the patient.