S3-E18.2 - Previewing Innovations in NAFLD Care 2022: NASH Epidemiology

Send us Fan MailThis week's episode and conversations preview the inaugural Innovations in NAFLD Care Workshop, premiering in Barcelona on May 6 and 7. Surfing the NASH Tsunami is a Media Partner for this conference. We will be conducting and posting interviews from the conference, co-host Roger Green is moderating a panel there, and Surfing NASH will present a follow-up episode on Wednesday, May 11.This conversation focuses on the first two sessions of the Innovations in NAFLD Care 2022 workshop. Jeff Lazarus defines Session 1 as "Epidemiology for Action." His underlying point: NAFLD is part of the metabolic family of diseases, but many of the specialties that treat other diseases in the metabolic famliy are not trained even to look for liver disease. As Jeff notes pointedly, "when we review the cardiology guidelines and we don't see liver mentioned except for the word to deLIVER on better cardiological outcomes, you know we have a problem." The epidemiologic numbers are staggering in their own right (25% of adult population with NAFLD, 25% of these with NASH; 25% of these with cirrhosis), but the point here is that many different specialists treat these patients without ever being taught or encouraged by guidelines to screen for liver disease. This session starts a presentation asking, "Is NAFLD/NASH a Public Health Challenge in 2022?", followed by presentations on cardiovascular links to NAFLD and NASH and the "Fatal Triple" of Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes and NAFLD/NASH. Jörn Schattenberg follows Jeff by presenting the second session, which focuses on the role screening must play and effective strategies and tactics. The first presentation in this session focuses on a clinical care pathway for screening. The second focuses on a UK-based program that computes test results for general practitioners, thereby simplifying their task of identifying patients at risk. The third goes back to the beginning of the clinical care pathway to discuss "How and Why to Identify NAFLD in Primary Care?"In the interest of time, this summary does not list the names of the speakers giving each talk. This is an absolutely first-class global faculty. If you are curious, go to the meeting program to learn who these exceptional speakers are.