Echosens announced their support of the Fatty Liver Foundation (FLF). The FLF helps raise awareness about fatty liver disease, which affects as many as one-in-three Americans, and advocates for the ongoing screening of undiagnosed nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and its more severe form nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). As part of its initiatives, the FLF is using FibroScan, a painless, five-minute test at the point of care to help physicians detect, monitor and prevent the progression of liver disease among patients who are often asymptomatic and may be high-risk.
The FibroScan study is playing an important role in efforts to proactively identify the high number of Americans who remain undiagnosed with liver fibrosis or cirrhosis caused by fatty liver disease. It demonstrates the critical importance of ongoing assessments of both liver fat and fibrosis at the point of care to diagnose and monitor high-risk patients. Ongoing monitoring of NAFLD is particularly important for people who are obese and have Type 2 diabetes as these patients may be at increased risk of liver cirrhosis, fibrosis and liver cancer.
The FLF has completed the recruitment phase of Screening for Undiagnosed NAFLD-NASH (SUNN) study (NCT03726827) and will be publishing the results of data gathered to identify risk factors for individuals with advancing but asymptomatic liver disease who have not been diagnosed by a physician but choose to self-select for screening with FibroScan.
Wayne Eskridge, CEO of the FLF states, “We’re very excited to work with Echosens and share a mission to reach into every community in America to ensure that more asymptomatic individuals get screened in a timely way. Our key message is that NAFLD can be reversed through diet and lifestyle modification if caught in the early stages, potentially avoiding progression to NASH or fibrosis”.
