Children's Hospital at Montefiore opens pediatric NAFLD unit

The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore has opened a clinical site to treat children with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, according to a press release from the medical center.

“Fatty liver disease has traditionally been thought of as an adult problem, but we have seen children as young as 4 years old with fat on their livers,” Bryan Rudolph, MD, attending physician, Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, and assistant professor of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said in the release. “Parents need to know that children are also susceptible to obesity-related complications such as fatty liver disease.”

According to the release, Rudolph will be running the new clinic, which will also have a multidisciplinary care team consisting of a pediatric gastroenterologist and nutritionist to help diagnose and treat NAFLD.

Along with diagnosing, monitoring and treating NAFLD, research will also be conducted onsite at the new clinic, aimed at identifying best practices for non-invasive diagnosis of the disease, according to the release.

“NAFLD is the most common liver disorder in the United States,” Rudolph said in the release. “The sooner we can identify children at risk and create an effective treatment plan, the less likely they are to develop life-threatening and costly complications.”

One of the goals of the new research is to inform specialists of the best way to identify children at risk for NAFLD and diagnose it without performing a liver biopsy, the current standard of care, according to the release.