Liver/Biliary Disorders News

Regarding the nonalcoholic fatty liver disease nomenclature debate, I am pretty neutral to what the new name should be, and I want to be sensitive to all parties involved.

Many health care providers agree the term nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is a bad name because it’s defining a disease by what it is not; however, the challenge has been to find something that would fulfill a number of criteria.

The term nonalcoholic fatty liver disease has been around for almost three decades and it is an imperfect term, because it uses two controversial words: “nonalcoholic” and “fatty”.

Antibiotic prophylaxis failed to reduce the incidence of hospital-acquired infections or overall mortality among patients with decompensated cirrhosis, according to data published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

Consuming at least 20% of daily calories from fast food correlated with an increased risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, with more damaging effects among individuals with underlying metabolic comorbidities.

Physical frailty before liver transplant correlated with poor functional status and health-related quality of life 1 year after surgery among patients with cirrhosis, according to research published in JAMA Surgery.

Non-heavy alcohol consumption was associated with fibrosis and at-risk nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, prompting researchers to suggest that current fatty liver disease categorization as alcoholic or nonalcoholic may be “misleading.”

Menopausal status was associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, with postmenopausal women having more than double the odds compared with premenopausal women, researchers reported.

Testing for HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C increased among U.S. Medicaid enrollees initiating treatment for opioid use disorder. However, a recent study showed approximately three-quarters of enrollees were not tested for each condition.

WASHINGTON — Active IV or prescription drug use did not affect attainment of sustained virologic response when treatment adherence for hepatitis C virus was already variable, according to a poster presented at The Liver Meeting.