Research physicians at Centricity Research have joined forces with noted healthcare professionals to focus on the prevention of NAFLD & NASH, and their increasing burden on Canadians.

We would like to applaud our very own Dr. Harpreet S. Bajaj MD & Dr Paul Marotta MD for being part of the research paper below, and bringing their expertise in NASH & NAFLD to drive change in the health of all Canadians.

To read the full paper, click here.

Burden of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in Canada, 2019–2030: a modelling study

Mark G. Swain MD, Alnoor Ramji MD, Keyur Patel MD PhD, Giada Sebastiani MD, Abdel Aziz Shaheen MBBCh, Edward Tam MD, Paul Marotta MD, Magdy Elkhashab MD, Harpreet S. Bajaj MD, Chris Estes MPH, Homie Razavi PhD

 

Background: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) account for a growing proportion of liver disease cases, and there is a need to better understand future disease burden. We used a modelling framework to forecast the burden of disease of NAFLD and NASH for Canada.

 

Methods: We used a Markov model to forecast fibrosis progression from stage F0 (no fibrosis) to stage F4 (compensated cirrhosis) and subsequent progression to decompensated cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, liver transplantation and liver-related death among Canadians with NAFLD from 2019 to 2030. We used historical trends for obesity prevalence among adults to estimate longitudinal changes in the number of incidents NAFLD cases.

 

Results: The model projected that the number of NAFLD cases would increase by 20% between 2019 and 2030, from an estimated 7 757 000 cases to 9 305 000 cases. Increases in advanced fibrosis cases were relatively greater, as the number of model-estimated prevalent stage F3 cases would increase by 65%, to 357 000, and that of prevalent stage F4 cases would increase by 95%, to 195 000. Estimated incident cases of hepatocellular carcinoma and decompensated cirrhosis would increase by up to 95%, and the number of annual NAFLD-related deaths would double, to 5600.

 

Interpretation: Increasing rates of obesity translate into increasing NAFLD-related cases of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma and related mortality. Prevention efforts should be aimed at reducing the incidence of NAFLD and slowing fibrosis progression among those already affected.

If you are interested to learn more about how you can participate in clinical trials for NAFLD & NASH, please contact us at [email protected] or by sending us a message below.