The Health department is, for the first time, starting fatty liver clinics in district hospitals so that liver diseases, especially fatty liver disease, can be diagnosed and treated early.
The decision to start fatty liver clinics and step up early diagnosis of the condition was taken as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), formerly known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), has been increasing in significant proportion of the population, the Health department said here on Monday.
If not detected and treated early through diet, lifestyle modification and exercise, fatty liver can progress to liver cirrhosis or liver cancer
The department has allocated funds for districts to start fatty liver clinics and in the first phase, these clinics will become functional at the General Hospitals at Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam and the district hospital at Tirur, Malappuram. In phases, more clinics will be made functional in all districts.
Fibroscan facility
The clinics will be made functional after ensuring that fibroscan facility (to assess stage of liver fibrosis) is made available in these hospitals, alongside blood tests and scans. At present, fatty liver clinics are functional only in select medical college hospitals .
That said, medical experts have pointed out that a simple ultrasound scan can detect fatty liver and that high grades of fatty liver, as detected in an ultrasound scan, alone need to be checked using a fibroscan to stage or score fibrosis. The Hindu