VIDEO: Keep NASH on the Tip of your Diagnostic Tongue

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common chronic liver disease in Western societies and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is the leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma and most common reason for liver transplant in the United States.

Patient Care recently spoke with Seth Baum, MD, a principal investigators working on several clinical trials that could bring to the FDA the first targeted therapy for liver fibrosis.

Baum notes that primary care clinicians see patients every day who may display signs of the classic phenotype for fatty liver disease - overweight or obesity, insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes, and dyslipidemias including elevated triglycerides, and high apolipoprotein B. He says this diagnosis needs to be on the "tip of our diagnostic tongues." And while there is no specific treatment for the disease, Baum discusses steps frontline clinicians can take to help arrest or even reverse progression to fibrosis.

Seth J Baum, MD, is founder and chief medical officer of Excel Medical Clinical Trials, LLC, in Boca Raton, Florida, and clinical affiliate professor of cardiology at Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine.