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New recommendations, led by experts at the University of Birmingham, have been published to improve the use of liver blood tests. The recommendations, published in Gut, are aimed at helping healthcare workers diagnose patients with liver disease as well as preventing unnecessary repeat tests for people unlikely to have significant liver disease. While the number of deaths from other common conditions is falling in the UK, those due to liver disease have been increasing dramatically, with a 400% increase in death rates between 1970 and 2010. Death rates due to liver disease has also risen sharply in younger people, with a 500% increase in the same period for those aged under 65. Lead author Professor Philip Newsome , Director of the Centre for Liver Research at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy , said: "Liver disease develops silently; there may be no signs or symptoms until the complications of liver failure develop. "Since the current liver blood tests were developed in the 1950s, they have been the mainstay of liver disease identification. Unfortunately the way liver blood tests are interpreted means that many patients with liver disease are not identified until at a late stage.