Surfing the MASH Tsunami

This week, Surfing the MASH Tsunami looks back on interviews Roger Green conducted during the EASL Congress itself. This conversation with SurfingMASH co-host and Tawazun Health Founder and Clinical Director Louise Campbell took place on the last day of the Congress.

This conversation centered on three major topics addressed at the EASL Congress, each of which made Louise "quite enthusiastic."

The first of these was the presentation of the new EASL/EASD/EASO Clinical Practice Guidelines and their practical implications (Season 5 Episode 21). Louise described this session as having "blown her mind" with its forward-thinking style and recommendations. She termed it a "leap of faith" that we all need to think differently about diabetes and obesity given how quickly incidence is growing. Her favorite items? The guidelines mentioned resmetirom even before it was approved in Europe. Also, the guidelines described ways to use several drugs that have not been approved for MASLD to treat patients with other metabolic conditions that are linked to MASLD. Louise also expressed enthusiasm at which three organizations partnered on this document.

Roger suggested that this aligned broadly with the various drug presentations in the Late Breaker and General sessions. Collectively, those presentations highlighted an array of drugs with different modes of action and strengths across the metabolic continuum. More generally, the two agreed that we are looking at a world where, in just a few years, we will have multiple drugs, most with unique modes and all with specific patient targets.

Roger asked whether Louise believes that over time, the diagnostic focus would stay with liver stiffness and CAP or switch to in-office PDFF. Louise suggested that in a world where clinical trials may not require biopsy, it would be difficult to build a sufficiently robust data set for any new tests.