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In a follow-up preview, Jörn Schattenberg, Louise Campbell, Mazen Noureddin, Ian Rowe and patient advocate Jeff McIntyre join Roger Green to discuss key presentations and posters of interest at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD). On November 4th-8th in Washington DC, as many as 10,000 attendees will convene in an effort to advance and disseminate the science and practice of hepatology, and to promote liver health and quality patient care.

Jörn starts this conversation by noting his anticipation for Parallel 12: NASH therapeutics and OMICs. Specifically, he points to an abstract titled Novel Mobile Health Delivered Lifestyle Intervention Program (Noom Health Weight) in Patients with NASH: a randomized controlled proof of concept study. This is a small trial in patients with NASH and obesity. The study sought to measure weight loss alongside weekly engagement with the Noom Healthy Weight app. 70% of patients met the engagement goal and lost an average of 5.3 kg over 16 weeks. Patients undergoing a more typical lifestyle management lost an average of 1 kg. Jeff joins to highlight the potential of a remote technology to generate 70% weekly engagement. He also finds this data promising in terms of providing a program that patients can use to measure health and manage fatty liver disease. By contrast, Jeff discusses recent conversations with a patient recently diagnosed with NAFLD who was not maintaining successful self-management due to obscurity of direction. Roger cautions that while this trial reported “no adverse event,” it consisted of a small sample size and short study duration. He also raises questions around the commercial model buttressing this study: who is paying and for how long can they maintain motivation? He envisions a more viable approach will be supported by commercial payers, who in return are investing in health care data. Given this may take some time to play out, Roger casts a third suggestion: FDA-approved digital therapeutic apps. He predicts this to be fertile grounds for patient empowerment over the next few years.

As this session winds down, Jeff responds to several of Roger’s comments and notes the turbulent impact of a pandemic on participation in wellness apps. This topic extends into the next conversation.