New method improves diagnosis of fatty liver disease

It is important to know whether patients have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) or alcohol-related liver disease (ALD), as this distinction plays a key role in treatment and prognosis but cannot be reliably determined by established diagnostic means. In a study led by MedUni Vienna, a new method has now been used to determine alcohol consumption in fatty liver disease. It was found that about 30% of patients with presumed NAFLD were at risk of alcohol-related liver damage. Alcohol markers in the patients' hair proved to be particularly accurate indicators. The research was recently published in the highly esteemed "Journal of Hepatology". The study assessed the alcohol consumption of 184 patients being treated for NAFLD or ALD in the specialised hepatology outpatient clinics of University Hospital Vienna and other centres in Oberndorf and Vienna. The research team led by Katharina Staufer and Michael Trauner, Head of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna, compared the results from currently available methods of alcohol detection with the results from a new testing procedure. This involves combining the alcohol parameters ethyl glucuronide in hair (hEtG) and urine (uEtG) with the AUDIT-C (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) questionnaire. Using this method, repeated moderate to excessive alcohol consumption was detected in about 29% of patients with alcohol-related liver disease but also in about 29% of patients with presumed non-alcoholic fatty liver. 25% of the population is diagnosed with NAFLD