What is it about?
The standard guidance of AASLD was not to screen for asymptomatic fatty liver disease. This led to many patients being diagnosed with advanced disease. The question was whether concerned patients would volunteer to be tested for liver disease and would enough disease be identified to suggest a change to the standard of care.
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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Early detection of disease is well established as the most effective strategy. The existing policy was counter to that on the theory that no drug treatment was available. It is well known, however, that lifestyle change and weight loss are useful therapies and the policy of not identifying early stage disease put people at risk of serious disease that might have been managed through non pharmacological means.
Perspectives
As a patient who successfully managed a stage 4 diagnosis through lifestyle change the standard guidance was an example of wrongly allocated medical resources. My goal is studying the response of the broader at risk but undiagnosed population was to see if the data would support and argument for a chance in the SOC.
Wayne Eskridge
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Screening for undiagnosed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH): A population-based risk factor assessment using vibration controlled transient elastography (VCTE), PLoS ONE, November 2021, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260320.
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