Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health

Institute director among those named authors of top downloaded articles published in 2021

May 2023

Congratulations to Director Arun Sanyal, M.D., lead author of three of publisher Wiley’s (@WileyGlobal) top downloaded articles in 2022 from among those published in the preceding year.

These were the articles that attracted the attention of clinicians and researchers:

“New drugs for #NASH,” published in Liver International, June 21, 2021

Conclusions included:

• Despite the high prevalence and potential consequences of NASH, there are currently no approved treatments for this disease.
• Given the scale of the problem and unmet needs, there are numerous agents in the development pipeline.
• The paradigm for the ideal drug is targeting both steatohepatitis and fibrosis and improvement of cardiometabolic risk factors.
• The main new drugs under investigation mainly focus on the pathogenesis of NASH to target inflammation and fibrogenesis.
• Because of the complexity of NASH, it will probably be necessary to combine different classes of drugs to increase their effectiveness.

In the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism:

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease as a metabolic disease in humans: A literature review, published May 2021.

Conclusions: Given the complex interplay between NAFLD and metabolic dysfunction, there is an urgent need for multidisciplinary collaboration and established protocols for care of patients with NAFLD that are individualized and ideally support reduction of overall metabolic risk as well as treatment for NASH.

A clinical overview of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: A guide to diagnosis, the clinical features, and complications — What the non-specialist needs to know, published Aug. 13, 2021.

Conclusion: NAFLD is a common disease that every practicing physician would encounter. It is important to have a clear algorithm of management, even if one is not a specialist. Awareness of when to refer would help mitigate the huge morbidity and costs associated with the disease. (Accompanying video by Dr. Sanyal)