Egyptian Liver Journal (Oct 2023)

The novel approach for non-invasive diagnostic biomarkers from an early stage of NAFLD to advanced fibrosis

  • Pooja Dudeja,
  • Taishee Pal,
  • Aman Sharma

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s43066-023-00287-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Abstract Background Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a spectrum of disorders that will be started from more than or equal to 5% of fats deposited into the liver hepatocyte cells and progressively leads to steatosis, further increment in fat deposition, and signature of inflammatory markers which cause the non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) condition. Due to a lack of diagnosis and effective treatment, NASH is converted into liver cirrhosis or hepatocarcinoma, which indicates the irreversible stage of the disease and finally recommends liver transplantation for patient survival. However, nowadays, several clinical biomarkers are identified, and most of the new biomarkers are in the developmental stage, but still the diagnosis of each stage of fatty liver is unaccomplished. So, in this review article, we try to present all current mechanistic perspectives to find the non-invasive biomarkers which could be the best approach in the future to diagnose fatty liver disease in each stage. Main text NAFLD is a growing phase disease if properly not taken care of by the patient. There are certain factors that can make fast progress in the disease stage like NAFLD to advance liver fibrosis or hepatocarcinoma. We describe to the best extent how different types of disease stages in the case of the fatty liver could be diagnosed using non-invasive biomarkers. A certain type of mechanistic pathophysiology approach is used to differentiate each stage of fatty liver disease like serum biomarkers (inflammatory cytokines), lipoproteins, micro-RNAs, gut microbiome-associated biomarkers, lipid droplet-associated perilipins, apolipoprotein E, the role of dihydroceramide, and gene expression studies. Conclusions Recent advancements in diagnostic biomarkers research focused on non-invasive methods, but the diagnosis of different stages of fatty liver disease is still inconclusive. We tried to cover all the potential non-invasive biomarkers in our manuscript. This review helps the researchers to develop possible diagnostic biomarkers for each stage of liver disease.

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