Future Perspective
The field will evolve in the future by targeting an integrative approach of NAFLD diagnosis and therapeutics. For instance, the application in the clinical setting of a multi-scoring panel that not only minimizes the need for a liver biopsy for distinguishing between simple steatosis and NASH but also predicts a patient's global metabolic risk might be combined with a patient's genetic make-up and other data gathered from omics technologies to choose the right therapeutic program and to predict the individual chances of response (Figure 1). This personalized diagnosis will improve our capability to understand the disease biology and allow us to deal with a tailored medical intervention. Whether this strategy will evolve from whole-genome sequencing is not known. Nevertheless, practical implementation of this kind of approach together with the limitations of these technologies remains an enormous challenge.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This study was partially supported by grants PICT 2010-0441 and PICT 2012-0159 (Agencia Nacional de Promoción Científica y Tecnológica); and UBACYT CM04 (Universidad de Buenos Aires). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Personalized Medicine. 2014;11(8):735-743. © 2014 Future Medicine Ltd.
