'New Affirmative And Non-Stigmatizing "Fatty" Liver Disease Nomenclature announced by Multinational Liver Societies

USA: The multinational liver societies leaders from La Asociacion Latinoamericana para el Estudio del Hígado (ALEH), American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), and European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) as well as the co-chairs of the NAFLD Nomenclature Initiative announced New “Fatty” Liver Disease Nomenclature at At EASL Congress 2023.

The multinational liver societies together with patient advocacy groups had convened and endorsed a global nomenclature group in 2020 to review naming and definition options for NAFLD. The report was published on June 24 in Hepatology.

According to new nomenclature steatotic liver disease (SLD) was chosen as an overarching term to encompass the various aetiologies of steatosis. Further it was felt that term steatohepatitis should be retainedas it was an important pathophysiological concept.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) will be termed as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). MASLD encompasses patients who have hepatic steatosis and have at least one of five cardiometabolic risk factors.

It was decided that a new category termed MetALD be selected to describe those with MASLD who consume greater amounts of alcohol per week (140 g/week and 210 g/week for females and males respectively) outside of pure MASLD,.

Those with no metabolic parameters and no known cause have cryptogenic SLD. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) shall be replaced by the term Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).