Liver fibrosis is the major driver in liver disease progression. Prof. Romero-Gómez, Spain, reviews on NoninvasiveTests - NITs for screening, referral, and diagnosis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Prof. Manuel Romero-Gomez discusses the course of liver histology and its impact on mortality and morbidity in patients with NAFLD and NASH. He clarifies how fibrosis determines the prognosis of NAFLD and is the main therapeutic target. The importance of steatosis is also discussed both at the early phase and advanced phase. Finally he reviews the association with HCC and CV risks.
The diagnosis of NASH is critically important for clinical trials and clinical practice. Today, the gold standard to diagnose NASH is a liver biopsy, as it’s the most complete diagnostic solution allowing clinicians to study key characteristics of the disease. But it has limitations. Liver biopsies require significant expertise both to perform but also to interpret the results. Biomarkers could play an important role and imaging biomarkers (transient elastography and shear-wave) plus MRI techniques allow assessment of liver damage in NAFLD with high diagnostic accuracy
There is a need for new biomarkers that allow the detection and quantification of liver diseases supported on the measurement of fat, iron, fibrosis, inflammation. Dr Romero-Gomez presents a state-of-the-art video on imaging biomarkers with the pros and cons for each technology. For daily practice, he also suggests a diagnosis algorithm