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A new, easy-to-use blood test can identify when a person's liver disease is being caused by excessive alcohol, according to researchers.
With the test, researchers can estimate whether a person with fatty liver disease might have alcohol-related liver damage, as recently reported on February 25 in the journal Gastroenterology.
“This new scoring offers clinicians a simple and accessible way to discover hidden alcohol-related liver injuries,” said senior investigator Dr. Rohit Loomba, professor of medicine at the University of California-San Diego.
The fatty liver disease affects almost 1 in 3 adults worldwide, according to researchers. More and more people are developing fatty liver disease as a result of obesity, and alcohol consumption can further worsen liver damage. However, patients often minimize how much they drink when talking to their doctor, which makes it difficult to assess whether alcohol is causing liver damage, the researchers noted. For the new study, researchers combined five standard laboratory values that are already collected in most visits to a primary care physician or liver specialist.“By improving the classification of liver diseases, we can help patients achieve better long-term health outcomes,” he said in a press release.
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“Another goal was to build something practical,” said lead researcher, Dr. Federica Tavaglione, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California-San Diego. These lab values are already part of standard care, so the test could be implemented immediately without adding cost or complexity for clinics. To develop and validate this test, the researchers analyzed more than 500 people in San Diego and about 1,800 people in Sweden. The results showed that the test can accurately identify people whose liver disease could be affected by excessive alcohol consumption. Those people could then undergo another, more precise alcohol test to confirm the results of the first test. This second test is more expensive or not available in many settings, so having a screening tool helps doctors use it more prudently, according to the researchers.
