Liver Diseases

Without the Liver,
there is no life

And you have only one 
liver: treat it well!

There, deep inside
you filter and distribute
you share and separate
you multiply and lubricate
you scoop and harvest the fabric of life …

Counting on you I expect justice:
I love my life: Don’t you betray me!
Continue working,
and don’t let die my song.

Pablo Neruda "Ode to the Liver"
Literature Nobel Prize - 1971

Our Mission: Personal Care

Patients play the central role in all the activities of our Foundation. A strong sense of responsibility and adherence to high standards of ethical conduct motivate our daily work and we strive to help our patients by identifying their liver disease and treating them with the best treatments. 

The Foundation of Liver Diseases cultivated a close relationship with the university center and focuses its responsibility also in the Development and testing of new and/or better therapeutic options.

The care of patients with liver diseases not only applies to the liver as an isolated organ but also includes many aspects of medicine. Therefore, a multidisciplinary approach is necessary and our Foundation fosters and encourages an active and open communication culture, both in-house and towards other medical disciplines as well as towards general practitioners and patients.


Within the field of hepatology a huge range of rare liver diseases has to be dealt with

Patients with rare liver diseases often face a long history of endured pain before a proper and accurate diagnosis is made and the real reasons for their diseases are identified. Such patients need a multidisciplinary management of physicians who are familiar and well trained with such rare liver diseases. With a catchment area of several million, we take care of patients with diseases like the Wilson’s disease, genetic cholestatic diseases (PFIC, BRIC), adenomatose, polycystic liver diseases, congenital hepatic fibrosis, vascular liver disease (e.g. Osler`s disease), porphyria, glycogenosis, cystic fibrosis and others. As experts in liver diseases we accept your inquiries and medical assignments which you might please address directly to hepatologie@insel.ch.


Liver Diseases - Diagnosis - Treatments

Over the past ten years, enormous medial advances have been made in the treatment of liver diseases

  • Liver transplantation has become an established procedure
  • Hepatitis B and C can be cured

Liver functions

  • The liver filters whatever enters the human body through the gut (bacteria, medicine, environmental toxins).
  • The liver is a biochemical factory, which produces virtually all proteins (e.g. albumin and coagulation factors).
  • The liver is an energy (glycogen) and vitamin storage facility.
  • The liver is an important excretory organ: it removes bilirubin (which makes us appear yellow if the excretion is not functioning) and cholesterol from the body.

Liver diseases - what can go wrong?

  • Inherited diseases

Haemochromatosis (iron accumulation)
Alpha-1 Antitrypsin deficiency
Wilson disease (copper accumulation)
Gilbert's Syndrome, etc

  • Acquired diseases

Viral infections
Alcoholic and non-alcoholic liver diseases
Drug induced liver injury
Tumour