A marketing application was filed with the FDA by Intercept Pharmaceuticals for the approval of its candidate obeticholic acid as a treatment for fibrosis patients due to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis. Intercept will also seek approval from European regulators by the last quarter of this year.

Patients who received treatments beyond lifestyle changes had a better quality of life for the patient, and that could save the health care industry billions of dollars, according to a study by Zobair Younossi, MD, chairman of the department of medicine at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia, and colleagues that was presented at Digestive Disease Week. "A regimen with sustained efficacy for advanced NASH can lead to substantial clinical and economic benefits," researchers wrote.

Patients with chronic hepatitis B and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis are at greater risk for advanced fibrosis and liver-related outcomes that could include death, according to a study by Hannah Choi of the Toronto Center for Liver Disease in Ontario and colleagues that was published in Hepatology. Physicians should evaluate patients with chronic HBV and determine if a biopsy for NASH is needed, they wrote.

Patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis who followed a ketogenic diet had improved liver disease markers and metabolic parameters, as well as lost weight and improved their HbA1c, according to a study presented by Yuliya Belopolsky, MD, a resident in internal medicine at NorthShore University HealthSystem, at Digestive Disease Week. Another study that will follow patients for two years is planned, he said.