TIMP1 and chronic hepatitis C virus infection: Over the past years, several noninvasive tests have become available to assess liver fibrosis, primary in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection.[36, 37] The currently available noninvasive tests, which are surrogate markers of liver fibrosis (direct markers of fibrosis), such as serum hyaluronate, Type IV collagen, matrix metalloproteinase 1 (MMP), tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1), laminin, and TGF β, have limited accuracy for diagnosis of significant fibrosis (METAVIR ≥ F2 or Ishak >3).