Dawn of an era of effective treatments for MAFLD

Abstract

Abstract Fatty liver disease is a commonly occurring disease resulting in hepatic and extrahepatic complications. To date, there have been few available treatments beyond conventional lifestyle modification. While lifestyle modifications resulting in weight loss >10% have shown to be beneficial for metabolic dysfunction‐associated steatohepatitis (MASH), for the majority of patients, this is difficult to achieve. The recent approval of resmetirom (a thyroid hormone receptor beta agonist) by the Food and Drug Administration following positive results for histological outcomes in a phase 3 trial has opened the door for new treatments for metabolic (dysfunction)‐associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) and MASH. There are currently a number of phase 3 trials targeting a variety of signaling pathways involved in the pathogenesis of metabolic steatohepatitis that are also promising. This review focuses on the currently available treatments for MAFLD and MASH, ongoing phase 3 clinical trials, and unresolved controversies in clinical trials in this area.

Keywords

• clinical trials
• MAFLD
• resmetirom