Publication
New FLASH publication: Can we accurately detect hepatic inflammation with a blood test?
For years, there have been a need for blood-based markers to detect hepatic inflammation, suggestive of progressive liver disease. A new publication by FLASH evaluate both new and old markers for hepatic inflammation in patients with alcohol- associated liver disease with promising results.
Liver fibrosis and cirrhosis are driven by hepatic inflammation, which in chronicliver diseases mainly present as a subclinical and asymptomatic condition. Hepatic inflammation is a dynamic condition driven by fat accumulation and alcohol toxicity, and is strongly related to disease progression. While we with transient elastography (ex. fibroscan) accurately can screen for liver fibrosis here-and-now, have no tools yet been validated for diagnosing or monitoring hepatic inflammation.
In a new publication by FLASH, do we evaluate the performance of both old (eg. ALT, AST and GGT) and new (eg. M30, M65 and ActiTest) blood-based markers for detectingsevere hepatic inflammation, in asymptomatic patients with alcohol-associated liver disease. A total of 265 liver-biopsies patients were included, and we find that while ALT perform very poorly for hepatic inflammation, are both AST and M30 very accurate. Moreover, do we find that high M30 levels are predictive of liver-related events and mortality, also when correcting for advanced fibrosis, BMI and alcohol consumption.
For more details on the article with open-access, please follow this link