Open AccessReferral care paths for non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease—Gearing up for an ever more prevalent and severe liver disease
Author(s) -
van Dijk AnneMarieke,
Schattenberg Jörn M.,
Holleboom Adriaan G.,
Tushuizen Maarten E.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
united european gastroenterology journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.667
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 2050-6414
pISSN - 2050-6406
DOI - 10.1002/ueg2.12150
Subject(s) - medicine , fatty liver , disease , referral , epidemiology , intensive care medicine , steatohepatitis , liver disease , steatosis , family medicine
Non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an increasingly prevalent and potentially severe liver disease, emphasizing the need for implementation of widely supported care paths for patients at risk for advanced stages of NAFLD. In particular, the distinction of patients with a progressive and/or advanced, fibrotic NAFLD from those with simple steatosis requires improvement, as well as the awareness for NAFLD among health care professionals. Broad acceptance and implementation of interdisciplinary care paths in the near future will bring enhanced identification of those patients that benefit from surveillance, intensive lifestyle management, and empirical or investigational pharmacotherapy and enhance our epidemiological grasp of NAFLD in relation to lifestyle, genetic background, and cardiometabolic comorbidities related to NAFLD.