Abstract: Objective To explore the value of direct measurement of liver stiffness in evaluating the pathological severity hepatitis B related cirrhosis.Methods The liver stiffness of 113 patients with various kinds of surgical liver diseases was measured directly by Shaw’s sclerometer.Based on the distribution of liver stiffness value（LSV），liver stiffness is divided into three grades， grade Ⅰ（LSV：2 to 6HC），grade Ⅱ（LSV：7 to 11HC），grade Ⅲ（LSV：12 to 16HC）.The severity of liver cirrhosis of 76 patients with hepatitis B background was pathologically evaluated using the Laennec staging system，and the correlation between LSV and pathological grade of liver cirrhosis was analyzed.Results There was a significant correlation between LSV and pathological grade of liver cirrhosis（r=0.693，P<0.05）.The AUC of LSV for estimating mild，moderate and severe cirrhosis were 0.91，0.81 and 0.80，respectively.Conclusion There was a significant positive correlation between LSV and pathological grade of liver cirrhosis.LSV can be used as an effective parameter in evaluating the pathological severity of liver cirrhosis.

Key words: direct measurement, liver stiffness, liver stiffness grading, pathological grading of liver cirrhosis, Laennec classification