Increasing rates of obesity, metabolic syndrome and alcohol overuse causesnon-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and alcoholic liver disease (ALD) to rise more thananyothernon-communicable disease. 25%ofthe worldpopulationhas fattyliverdisease and this represents an unmet social challenge as one third ofNAFLD- and ALD-patients progress from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis, with accumulation of fibrosis and risk of end-stage liver disease. The only available treatments for NAFLD and ALD are lifestyle interventions, but they are insufficient due to limited efficacy, frequent failure and poor compliance.
Odense University Hospital addresses this challenge with the establishment of the Elite Research Center – FLASH.
The ambition of FLASH is to:
- Understand mechanisms of disease progression from fatty liver disease to end-stage cirrhosis and translate these causal findings into new treatment targets and test them in RCT’s.
- Develop and validate non-invasive markers to diagnose, prognosticate, monitor treatment effect and screen patients at risk of progressive liver fibrosis due to NAFLD and ALD.
- Assess efficacy, effectiveness and cost-benefit of treatments and screening methods for NAFLD and ALD.
- Advance and support clinical operations in hepatology at Odense University Hospital to always meet best international standards and set new top standards in the field.
