Alcohol Consumption in Pregnancy; Diagnosing Steatotic Liver Disease

In this week's episode of TTHealthWatch, experts discuss recent medical headlines. Rick Lange, president of Texas Tech Health El Paso, and Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine, delve into various topics.

First, they explore a novel agent for acute pain. Typically, opioids are the go-to for managing acute pain, but they come with side effects such as nausea, vomiting, constipation, and the risk of abuse and addiction. The new agent, LTG-001, is a non-opioid that selectively inhibits sodium channels, providing opioid-level analgesia without the side effects.

A phase IIb trial involving 343 individuals who had undergone abdominal surgery found the new agent, both at low and high doses, to be more effective than placebo and even more effective than opioids. The new agent's peak effect was observed within an hour, compared to about 2 hours for oral opioids.

Next, the conversation shifts to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASH). This condition is increasingly prevalent and often linked to obesity. Diagnosing MASH typically requires an invasive liver biopsy, which can cause bleeding and pain. However, a multicenter study presented at Nature Medicine is investigating non-invasive biomarkers for MASH diagnosis.

These biomarkers include magnetic resonance elastography, vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE), serum biomarkers, and composite scores, which can help stage the disease and identify appropriate candidates for clinical trials.