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Surfing NASH extends its preview coverage of the upcoming EASL Congress with a three-part episode. First up, Ian Rowe and Jörn Schattenberg speak to Roger Green about anticipations around the 2023 program and which abstracts are eye-catching and why. This conversation comes from that session and begins with Ian’s selection of a highly-anticipated abstract which will detail data from the MAESTRO-NASH clinical trial of resmetirom for the treatment of NASH and liver fibrosis. Specifically, Ian looks to learn more about the potential prevention of progression of fibrosis. Jörn adds the note that this abstract will be the first oral presentation to set the stage for the wider meeting. After a few more comments around expectations for the MAESTRO-NASH presentation, Jörn goes on to highlight interest in a poster being presented by a colleague titled, Impairment of health-related quality of life among people with type 2 diabetes and advanced fibrosis. Jörn describes that this is “not rocket science, but an application on how we do medicine these days for patients with NASH.” After a few additional notes on the topic, the baton is passed to Roger to discuss his interests around an oral poster titled Analytical and clinical validation of AIM-NASH: a digital pathology tool for artificial intelligence-based measurement of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis histology. Roger prefaces his enthusiasm for the paper with the note that Stephen Harrison has recently suggested on the podcast that FDA might accept AIM as a replacement for histology in terms of drug development. It’s Roger’s hunch that this may be a pivotal paper in that discussion and bring us closer to the idea of moving beyond histopathology to AI-assisted - or even AI-driven - reads for admission or endpoint assessment studies.

As the conversation winds down, Ian comments on his interest in developing an understanding around “how frequently tests need to be done and what magnitude of change in a biomarker predicts an outcome that is worse or indeed better.” This leads Jörn and Roger to tease what may be discussed in a session on diagnostics that will feature three seperate presentations by friends of the podcast Stephen Harrison, Naim Alkhouri and Mazen Noureddin.

The world’s largest liver meeting takes place 21-24 June in Vienna with an international faculty of experts from over 200 institutions. The diverse program will feature 2500 abstracts and be a uniquely momentous occasion for developing multidisciplinary approaches aimed at putting a major dent in Fatty Liver disease. Stay tuned for more coverage and if you have any question or interests around the event, we kindly ask that you submit reviews wherever you download the discourse. Alternatively, you can write to us directly at [email protected].

Today’s episode is sponsored by HistoIndex, the first global company to provide stain-free, fully automated imaging solutions for visualizing and quantifying morphological and architectural features of fibrosis. HistoIndex couples breakthrough biophotonic technology with an AI-powered digital pathology system to provide consistent, high-throughput imaging in liver disease and cancer. The platform benefits clinical research and speeds development of drugs and diagnostics. For more information, visit www.histoindex.com.

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