Rare liver diseases are of increasing importance and contribute to a considerable proportion of the workload of hepatology, especially in tertiary care centres. Care for rare liver diseases, like other liver diseases, can only be provided with sufficient background knowledge and experience. This is difficult to acquire in daily practice, due to the relative infrequence of rare diseases.

The School for Rare Liver Diseases aims at improving clinical knowledge for both paediatric and adult hepatologists, addressing issues of transitional care, in particular, such as when paediatric liver transplant recipients become adults. In addition, organisational issues such as referral centres and the opportunities and chances through the new European Reference Network, ERN RARE-LIVER, will be discussed.

During this EASL School, two state-of-the-art lectures will be held:

• Paediatric and adolescent liver transplantation: Long-term prognosis and care 
  by Dr Ekkehard Sturm 
• A clinical approach to autoimmune liver diseases: What are the open questions, what possible answers? 
  by Prof. Ansgar W. Lohse