Tag Archives: terminology

Improving Fatty Liver Disease Nomenclature

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Those who follow this blog regularly know that I have frequently agreed with articles suggesting improving/updating nomenclature for many conditions including the following:

A recent commentary (M Eslam et al. Gastroenterol 2019; 157: 590-3) suggests that fatty liver diseases could use a nomenclature makeover as well.

In pediatrics, the issue of alcoholic and nonalcholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) overlap is fairly minor in many ways.  In fact, when I am seeing a young teen with NAFLD, parents will often chuckle when I tell them that ‘Johnny’ needs to lay off the booze (now and in the future).  However, it is difficult to fully differentiate nonalcoholic fatty liver disease from alcoholic fatty liver disease, especially in adults.

Full Text: Toward More Accurate Nomenclature for Fatty Liver Diseases

Key points:

  • “Light (1.0-9.9 g/d) or moderate (10.0–29.9 g/d; 10.0–19.9 g/d for women) alcohol consumption in patients with NAFLD is not uncommon…The negative impact of alcohol intake also extends to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis resolution.”
  • “it is time for clinicians to recognize that, within the spectrum of fatty liver disease, there will be patients with true alcohol-related liver disease (AFLD), those with predominant AFLD compounded by metabolic cofactors, those with true NAFLD in whom alcohol consumption is near zero and disease progression is due to metabolic factors, and perhaps a majority with fatty liver disease owing to an abnormal metabolic milieu but with alcohol intake of ≤30 g/d.”
  • ” An updated and more appropriate nomenclature and classification system is required to reflect the nuances of disease etiology within the spectrum of fatty liver disease…”
    • MPFL: metabolic dysfunction predominant fatty liver;
    • APFL, alcohol predominant fatty liver;
    • MPFL/A and MPFL/N: metabolic dysfunction predominant fatty liver with, and without alcohol intake that is anything more than ceremonial
    • APFL/M and APFL/N: alcoholic predominant fatty liver with metabolic dysfunction or with no metabolic dysfunction.

My take: The authors present a good rationale for updating fatty liver disease –will this be adopted?

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