[Methods for serum bile acid analysis and their diagnostic inpact (author's transl)].

Various hepatic disorders lead to elevated serum bile acid concentrations. Determination of serum bile acids is helpful for screening and follow up of liver diseases, it gives however only little support in the differentiation of various hepatic diseases. Besides the enzymatic method which has been shown to be good for routine analysis of serum bile acids, also radioimmunological methods seem to be useful.