The NASH Education Program™: Key Insights from the First US Survey Commissioned by the NASH Global Health Observatory™
October 20 2017 - 11:47AM
Business Wire
- Survey targeting hepatologists,
gastroenterologists, endocrinologists and diabetologists based in
the US, with 392 participants across different practice
settings
- Specific needs related to NASH
disease awareness highlighted, with a broad overview on the current
level of understanding within the medical community
- Detailed results will be shared
during the AASLD Liver Meeting® on Twitter
(@NASH_Education #NASHedu)
The NASH Education ProgramTM is an endowment fund created at the
end of 2016 by the biopharmaceutical company GENFIT with the
objective to conduct – together with other key stakeholders
committed to the fight against nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)
– a series of disease awareness initiatives around NASH. Today, it
publishes new results from the first survey conducted in the US for
the NASH Global Health ObservatoryTM.
Some highlights:
- 89% of
diabetologists/endocrinologists surveyed consider that patients
they see in daily practice are at high risk of developing NAFLD or
more severely, NASH.
- Around 65% of hepatologists,
gastroenterologists, diabetologists and endocrinologists surveyed
indicated a need for educational material on emerging therapies and
management strategies for the treatment of NASH.
- A majority of
hepatologists/gastroenterologists (60%) understand that “Resolution
of NASH” (ballooning/inflammation) should be a major objective for
a therapeutic treatment aimed at preventing disease
progression.
- Only 49% of
hepatologists/gastroenterologists realize that cardiovascular
disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in NAFLD
patients.
Dr. Stephen Harrison, Medical Director of Pinnacle Clinical
Research, Visiting Professor of Hepatology at the Radcliffe College
of Medicine, University of Oxford, San Antonio, Texas, USA,
commented:
“Results from this first pilot survey conducted in the US are
extremely insightful in that they confirm – with numbers, facts and
stats – what we already sense and experience in our daily practice.
These results also shed an interesting light on some of the key
issues related to NASH awareness. For instance, it’s quite striking
to see how high the demand is from a vast majority of physicians
for education on emerging therapies and management strategies to
address NASH. This survey also delivers new insights about
physicians’ expectations in relation to future treatments, with a
majority of them now waiting for a drug that will be able to
“resolve NASH”. For these reasons, I think the work performed by
the NASH Global Health Observatory is extremely useful, and I’m now
looking forward to their next wave of activity. Indeed, disease
state awareness for both patients and clinicians is sorely needed.
Ultimately, all of this knowledge should help us to take relevant
actions for the benefit of patients and individuals at risk.”
Dr Kenneth Cusi, Professor of Medicine, Chief, Division of
Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida, USA, added:
“As an expert specialized in endocrinology, diabetes and
metabolism, I am particularly excited to be part of the work
carried out by The NASH Education Program, especially because this
pilot survey goes far beyond hepatology, to include
endocrinologists and diabetologists. As such, it’s indeed well
aligned with real life practice, because NASH is more than just a
liver disease. The valuable insights gained through the pilot
survey and the data collected are essential for all of the
stakeholders in NASH to understand unmet needs related to medical
education, in order to provide the right answers and design disease
awareness initiatives to meet those needs. The survey reveals that
there is an overwhelming agreement that NASH is a public health
problem among clinicians and clear evidence of significant
educational gaps. Two out of 3 physicians agreed on the need for
more education on the management of such patients as well as on
emerging therapies. Just 60% were aware of the AASLD
recommendations. Just one out of six patients seeing a hepatologist
came from my peer endocrinologists, although they see a population
at high-risk for NASH. In terms of treatment, most relied on weight
loss but admitted that only a very small number succeeded. Taken
together, this gives an indication about all the work that still
has to be done to increase awareness!”
The NASH Education ProgramTM’s ambition is to contribute to the
global effort to spread awareness around Non-alcoholic
Steatohepatitis (NASH). With the growing prevalence of NASH across
the globe, there is indeed an increased need to improve both
patients’ and physicians’ knowledge on the causes and consequences
of this pathology which, as of today, remains without treatment
options, but with several promising candidates in clinical
development. The ultimate goal of The NASH Education ProgramTM is
to improve general awareness within patient and medical
communities, to ultimately optimize the identification and clinical
management of NASH patients.
With The NASH Global Health ObservatoryTM, The NASH Education
ProgramTM hopes to gain valuable insights into existing gaps in
knowledge around NASH that it can then use to design future disease
awareness initiatives, in collaboration with the scientific
committee of The NASH Education ProgramTM. This committee is an
invaluable resource thanks to the strong and highly relevant
footprint in both hepatic and metabolic diseases contributed by
members Dr Stephen Harrison (USA), Dr. Kenneth Cusi (USA), Dr. Sven
Francque (Belgium), and Dr. Bertrand Cariou (France).
Results presented today come from a survey representing input
from 392 American hepatologists, gastroenterologists,
endocrinologists and diabetologists surveyed from October 5, to
October 16, 2017. This study is the corollary of a survey conducted
in France on 161 hepatologists and endocrinologists in February
2017.
Detailed results will be published during the AASLD Liver
Meeting® via the Twitter account of The NASH Education ProgramTM
(@NASH_education), using #NASHedu.
The AASLD Meeting will also be an opportunity for The NASH
Education Program™ to release the full length version of an
educational video involving Drs. Stephen Harrison, Mary Rinella,
Arun Sanyal, Kenneth Cusi and Vlad Ratziu, that was shot during
NASHTAG 2017.
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ABOUT NASH
“NASH”, or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, is a liver disease
characterized by an accumulation of fat (lipid droplets), along
with inflammation and degeneration of hepatocytes. The disease is
associated with long term risk of progression to cirrhosis, a state
where liver function is diminished, leading to liver insufficiency,
and also progression to liver cancer.
ABOUT THE NASH EDUCATION PROGRAMTM
The Nash Education ProgramTM is an endowment fund created end of
2016 by GENFIT, with the objective to develop disease awareness
initiatives around NASH, and as such address unmet information
needs across a large set of stakeholders in the disease. Its
investments should allow the fund to play an active educational
role in the acquisition, production and dissemination of medical
and scientific knowledge, towards the medical community, patients,
and general public, under the supervision of a scientific
committee.
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