Liver: New biomarker identified for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis

摘要

For patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, it is important to differentiate individuals with steatosis from those with steatohepatitis as the latter are at risk of cirrhosis and hepatocelluar carcinoma and might need further treatment. However, currently, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) can only be diagnosed with a liver biopsy, which is a high-risk procedure. A group from the USA has recently found that non-HDL cholesterol (non-HDL-C) could be used as a noninvasive biomarker for NASH, as it is easily calculated from standard lipid panels.