Our Blog

This video presents a comprehensive review of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) & non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), delivered by international experts with a multidisciplinary approach: Dr. Maarten Tushuizen, Prof. A.G (Onno) Holleboom, and Prof. Sven Francque, along with chair, Prof. Stefan Anker. They review the epidemiology of NAFLD / NASH, its increasing prevalence rates, and discuss current best practices to improve patient outcomes.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are a leading cause of liver diseases worldwide, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this review on non-invasive evaluation, Prof. Jérôme Boursier, France, presents a meta analysis focusing on the identification of patients with high risk profile and in need of specific management. Dr. Boursier reviews the two major families of non-invasive tests and discusses the sequential use of tests recommended in the EASL guidelines 2021.

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. He addresses the EASL clinical practice guidelines on non-invasive tests for evaluation of liver disease severity and prognosis (a 2021 update). Further, he reviews the detection methods of fibrosis and emphasizes on the importance of introducing educational and communication tools to increase awareness.

Prof. Maarten Tushuizen, Netherlands, discusses the current treatment strategies for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and explains as well as future therapeutic approaches. Non-invasive tests (NITs) for staging the continuum of NAFLD / NASH are critical as well as establishing effective care pathways.

Prof. Stéfan Darmoni, France, discusses the clinical data warehouses (CDW) where he explains its definitions and various use cases. He then makes a detailed explanation on Hospital Information System and discusses the HDW objectives while reviewing the HDW objectives in clinical research. Prof. Stéfan, then makes a detailed review on the CDW state of the art where he discusses various tools such as ehop, Dr Warehouse, ConSoRe, and EDSaN. For the clinicians, he presents the big data derived from the Rouen University Hospital Clinical Data Warehouse and makes a demo on the EDSaN platform and discusses some of the use cases.

Prof. A.G.(Onno) Holleboom, Netherlands, discusses non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) as a metabolic disease and reviews management strategies in order to improve patients outcomes. He discusses the spectrum of NAFLD, where he presents a snapshot of the relative damages and repairs which focus on the NAFLD field in 2022. He then discusses the hepatic component metabolic syndrome (MetSy) and the mechanisms and pharmacological developments on NAFLD / NASH. For the clinicians he presents various statistics that summarise NAFLD / NASH as an ever more prevalent and severe liver disease.

Dr. Jean-François Dufour (Switzerland) reviews the association between cancers and NASH, where he highlights the causes of death in NAFLD patients, in which cardiovascular diseases and non-liver cancer with 38.3% and 18.7% are identified as some of the major causes. He then discusses NAFLD and cancer incidence rates by presenting the retrospective Korean study in 25,947 individuals conducted over an average period of 7.5 years and also reviews on the types of cancer that is associated with NAFLD. He also explains the interaction between NAFLD and breast cancer recurrence after curative surgery. Dr. Jean-François then discusses a retrospective cohort study on how bariatric surgery is associated with significant risk reduction for colorectal, pancreatic, endometrial, thyroid cancer, HCC and multiple myeloma. He also reviews various treatment options of HCC. Finally he presents the findings of efficacy of ICPIs in 3 Phase 3 RCTs and the retrospective cohort of efficacy of ICPIs in 130 cases with HCC.

Dr. Marat Fudim (USA) reviews the interaction between NAFLD and Heart Failure with preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF), including highlights of the global prevalence rate of NAFLD. He also discusses about NAFLD based on its progression, as a multi-system disease and how patients with a medical background of diabetes mellitus are at higher risk. He then reviews the association of NAFLD and various cardiac complications such as coronary heart disease, cardiac dysfunction, health failure, etc. Dr. Fudim also explains the etiological relationship between NAFLD and HFpEF which concludes that the downstream risk of HF was stronger in HFpEF in comparison with HFrEF. He also discusses the metabolic HFpEF phenotypes. Finally he presents the findings of a meta analysis of Incident Risk of HF after NAFLD.

Dr. Nicolas Lanthier (Belgium) reviews the interaction between the gut microbiota and PPARs in NAFLD. He discusses the microbiota and its link to NAFLD and IR, where he explains the key role of the gut microbes in the metabolism of their host and highlights how liver becomes the first organ to be exposed to gut changes. He also reviews the role of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPARs) in metabolism, inflammation and in vascular and fibrosis modulation. He explains the human bacterial microbiota changes and how it can relate to other metabolic changes such as adipose tissue expansion, muscle mass and myosteatosis. To clinicians, he presents patient studies on probiotic and prebiotics, and its impact at various disease stages such as NAFLD, NASH, overweight and obesity.