Abstract

Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is emerging worldwide as the leading cause of liver-related morbidity, mortality, and indication for liver transplantation. The ALD Special Interest Group and the Clinical Research Committee at the digital AASLD meeting in November 2020 held the scientific sessions to identify clinical unmet needs in ALD, and addressing these needs using clinical research methodologies. Of several research methodologies, the sessions were focused to a) study disease burden of ALD using large administrative databases, b) develop biomarkers for non-invasive diagnosis of alcoholic hepatitis (AH) and estimation of disease prognosis, c) identify novel therapeutic targets for ALD and AH, d) derive accurate models to predict prognosis or post-transplant alcohol relapse as a basis for developing treatment algorithm and a uniform protocol on patient selection criteria for liver transplantation, and e) examine qualitative research methodologies in studying the barriers to implementation of multidisciplinary integrated care model by hepatology and addiction teams for the management of dual pathology of liver disease and of alcohol use disorder. Prospective multicenter studies are required to address many of these clinical unmet needs. Further, multidisciplinary care models are needed to improve long-term outcomes in patients with ALD.

View details for DOI 10.1002/hep.32143

View details for PubMedID 34496071