‘Mistakes in managing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and how to avoid them’

Abstract

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the commonest cause of chronic liver disease. NAFLD is estimated to affect 25% of the global population. Therefore, it is widely encountered in primary care. A proportion of patients with NAFLD need a specialist referral, evaluation and follow-up.

There have been many updated guidelines on the management of NAFLD in the past few years. Given the burden of NAFLD in the community and its cardiovascular and liver-related adverse outcomes, knowledge of evidence-based standards of care for these patients is essential for any practitioner managing patients with NAFLD. As an asymptomatic disease in the early stages, NAFLD can lead to many mistakes in its management.

We aim to highlight some common mistakes in managing NAFLD and attempt to provide evidence-based recommendations.

Keywords:

• Fatty liver
• non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• NAFLD
• management
• mistake

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was not supported by any funding agency or sponsor.