Abstract: Objective To determine the etiology of cryptogenic liver diseases by pathological examination, and direct clinical diagnosis and treatment.Methods Data of the 442 inpatients who were diagnosed with abnormal liver function and undergone liver biopsy in the hospital from January 1st, 2005 to December 30th, 2008 was collected and analyzed using the CHISS 2004 statistical software.Results In 86% of the patients the diagnosis was determined by liver biopsy.There were significant differences in the distribution of patients with abnormal ALT in different groups (P < 0.01, P < 0.05) .The final diagnosis is mainly genetic-metabolic diseases and infectious diseases except?? Hepatitis A, B, C and E in the children, drug and toxic liver injury and autoimmune liver diseases in the adolescent, drug and toxic liver injury in the youth, drug and toxic liver injury, fatty liver and alcoholic liver diseases in the middle and old age, drug and toxic liver injury, and fatty liver in the male, drug and toxic liver injury in the female patients.There were significant differences for the distribution of patients with abnormal billirubin in different groups (P < 0.01, P < 0.05) .The final diagnosis is mainly hepatitis, infectious diseases except?? Hepatitis A, B, C and E and drug and toxic liver injury in the children, genetic-metabolic diseases in the adolescent and youth, drug and toxic liver injury, and fatty liver in the middle and old age, geneticmetabolic diseases in the male, and genetic-metabolic diseases, drug and toxic liver injury in the female.The distribution of cryptogenic liver disease was different with different age and sex.Conclusion Pathology is important for the diagnosis of cryptogenic liver diseases.Further research with high patient number is recommended to strengthen these study findings.