The LiverWELL Podcast with Dr Tram Tran: Some good news about diagnosing NASH

This week’s LiverWELL podcast features Dr Tram Tran, who is the Chief Medical Officer for Glympse Bio, and a renowned liver and viral hepatitis specialist with over 20 years of academic and industry experience at Gilead, Cedars-Sinai, and UCLA Geffen School of Medicine.

The scale and burden of liver health issues and liver disease in the US reflects that of Australia, with NASH or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease affecting one in four people, and this figure is growing alarmingly.

However, there is some good news on the horizon. Glympse Bio claim they are perfecting a first-of-its-kind blood test to diagnose and monitor non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (otherwise known as NASH).  Glympse has presented data demonstrating that their technology is 97% accurate in predicting or diagnosing NASH in patients by measuring protease activity in blood samples.

This has the potential to be groundbreaking in the field of hepatology. Currently diagnosing NASH is either painful and invasive, or dangerously vague (depending on the medical approach taken), and only 80-90% accurate. This test would provide both an accurate diagnosis and a baseline for monitoring the progression of the disease in patients.

Reducing the burden of liver disease on economies and health systems is essential. We hope to hear more about this diagnostic platform in the future and one day see it in use.

Listen to the podcast with Dr. Tran.

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