General Overview About the Current Management of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease includes a wide spectrum of manifestations from simple steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, fibrosis, and eventually cirrhosis or even hepatocellular carcinoma. This disorder is also associated with an increased cardiovascular risk, renal involvement, oncologic processes, metabolic disturbances, and an increased risk of all-cause mortality or hepatic mortality. For this reason, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease should be considered a disorder with high morbidity and mortality that must be diagnosed appropriately as soon as possible to establish adequate treatment. Noninvasive methods based on biochemical parameters should be used as a first step in the evaluation of any patient in whom this disease is suspected. However, serum/blood levels of liver enzymes are not a good indicator of liver damage and noninvasive methods, including biochemical tests and imaging, have suboptimal accuracy or are patented prototypes that show limitations in clinical practice. There are currently no drugs specifically approved for the treatment of these liver disorders, thus the most relevant intervention for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is lifestyle modification.