Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2024; 30(22): 2839-2842
Published online Jun 14, 2024. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v30.i22.2839
Screening for metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease: Time to discard the emperor’s clothes of normal liver enzymes?
Chen-Xiao Huang, Xiao-Dong Zhou, Calvin Q Pan, Ming-Hua Zheng
Chen-Xiao Huang, Ming-Hua Zheng, Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease Research Center, Department of Hepatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang Province, China
Xiao-Dong Zhou, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, The Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Diseases of Wenzhou, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang Province, China
Calvin Q Pan, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, New York University Langone Health, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY 11355, United States
Ming-Hua Zheng, Institute of Hepatology, Wenzhou Medical University, Key Laboratory of Diagnosis and Treatment for the Development of Chronic Liver Disease in Zhejiang Province, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Huang CX wrote the first draft of the manuscript, Zhou XD and Pan CQ contributed to the conception and writing of the manuscript; Zheng MH contributed to the critical revision of the manuscript; All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82070588 and No. 82370577.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Calvin Q Pan received institutional research grants from Gilead Sciences, Inc. and Wuxi Hisky Medical Technologies Co., Ltd. Ming-Hua Zheng has received honoraria for lectures from AstraZeneca, Hisky Medical Technologies and Novo Nordisk, consulting fees from Boehringer Ingelheim. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: Https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ming-Hua Zheng, MD, PhD, Doctor, Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Fatty Liver Disease Research Center, Department of Hepatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Nanbaixiang Street, Ouhai District, Wenzhou 325000, Zhejiang Province, China. zhengmh@wmu.edu.cn
Received: March 10, 2024
Revised: April 28, 2024
Accepted: May 20, 2024
Published online: June 14, 2024
Processing time: 87 Days and 13.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Screening and risk assessment procedures for metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease by liver enzymes may result in underdiagnosis and treatment delays. To improve the screening methods, it is feasible to lower the normal thresholds for liver enzymes and promote the use of noninvasive liver fibrosis scores.