Volume 83 - 2020 - Fasc.4 - Editorial
Metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease: a new clearer nomenclature with positive diagnostic criteria
Don’t say NAFLD anymore but MAFLD (“metabolic” instead of “non-alcoholic”) (1,2) !
This liver disease, which is the most frequent cause of elevated liver tests in our country, finally has an appropriate name.
Until recently, MAFLD was a diagnosis of exclusion, in a patient with more than 5% steatotic hepatocytes at the liver histology and after having ruled out the consumption of alcoholic beverages but also other rarer causes (such as viral hepatitis infection, drugs, auto-immune disorders...). The different non-invasive techniques for the detection of steatosis described in our guidance document (3) are now possible for this new positive diagnosis of MAFLD (Table).
