EASL Congress 2024: Interviews From A Seminal Meeting For MASLD & MASH

Send us Fan Mail00:00:00 - Surf's Up: Season 5 Episode 19During EASL Congress 2024, US-based Roger Green, conducted interviews with Mike Betel, Louise Campbell (twice) and Sven Francque from Milano. These interviews focused on the major MASLD themes and presentations at the event. 00:04:14 - Conversation with Mike Betel beginsOn Wednesday, the first afternoon of the meeting, Mike Betel joined Roger from the convention center. The first part of the conversation centered  on the Patient Advocate session that Mike chaired with Shira Zelber-Sagi. The session's goal was to discuss barriers to addressing unmet needs in a clinical setting and explore potential solutions. Mike's key takeaway: patients around the world are having challenges getting personal attention and time from their treaters. The rest of this interview touched briefly on other sessions Mike attended. 00:15:23 - First conversation with Louise Campbell Roger's first interview with Louise took place late on Thursday. She described the "really nice vibe" of the meeting, dampened by the fact that Stephen Harrison is no longer with us.The first session Louise chose to discuss was the previous day's Patient Advocate session. To her, the key point was to learn a key question that every provider should share with every patient once a year. She briefly mentioned the one presentation from the day's General Session she was able to attend:  analysis of the predictive value of VCTE.00:19:53 - Philosophically important presentationsLouise discussed two sessions that delivered powerful, somewhat novel messages. The first was a symposium sponsored by Novo Nordisk about how SLD treatment could "manage the cardiometabolic side...rather than focusing on liver disease." The second was the "Healthy Livers, Healthy Lives" presentation which presented "very startling figures" about SLD impact on US healthcare costs and productivity and how and why India has targeted this disease aggressively. 00:26:29 - Building momentum and energy around AI Louise and Roger both observed that momentum is building in MASLD and mentioned why they believe this is happening, 00:33:05 - Second conversation with Louise beginsTwo days later, Louise and Roger conducted a second conversation, which focused on her enthusiasm for the updated Clinical Practice Guidelines and their practical implications. 00:36:12 - CPG session implicationsLouise said this session had "blown her mind" with its forward-thinking style and recommendations. Her favorite point? The guidelines mentioned resmetirom even before it was approved in Europe.   00:44:07 - Thoughts about medicationsRoger suggested that CPG aligned broadly with the drug presentations in the Late Breaker and General sessions. Collectively, those highlighted drugs with an array of modes of action and strengths across the metabolic continuum.  00:46:09 - Thoughts about devicesRoger asked whether Louise believed that, over time, the diagnostic focus would shift from liver stiffness and CAP to in-office PDFF. Louise discusses why this might be difficult.00:51:48 - Conversation with Sven beginsThis conversation, which took place 90 minutes after the final gavel, started with Sven praising the "vibrant hepatology community" evident at the meeting. From there, the discussion covered the Clinical Practice Guidelines, major drug development presentations and other categories. The conversation is fairly short, but packed with information and insight. 01:06:42 - Question of the WeekRoger asks what kinds of support and education primary care will need to step into a leading role in treating SLD.01:07:13 - Business ReportPlans for the next month, growth of the SurfingMASH Community, a special surprise instead of the Vault.