VIDEO: Early diagnosis key to reducing PBC liver transplants

Editor’s note: This is an automatically generated transcript. Please notify editor@healio.com if there are concerns regarding accuracy of the transcription.

Prevention is everything. We need to reduce the rates of liver transplantation in PBC in an ongoing manner. What that means is make an early and effective clear diagnosis, understand the risk profile of your patient, and don't sit back and watch them live with elevated alkaline phosphatase because that is the group of patients who are likely to progress to develop cirrhosis. Your efficacy of second line therapies, in fact of any therapy in PBC, is greatest if you treat early. So I always say treat risk, not stage. Aim to be that hepatologist who prevents liver transplantation.

So if you see a patient with an elevated alkaline phosphatase with PBC, ask yourself, is their elevation significant? Are they the patient who's likely to progress to cirrhosis? And what can I do with the current and future toolbox and current clinical trials to change their risk from high risk of progression to low to medium risk of progression, i.e., what can I do as a clinician to put the brakes on this cholestatic injury with the therapies that I have now and the therapies in development?