In June 2023 major international liver disease societies announced that the name NAFLD was changing to MASLD. This was the result of 2 years of discussions involving clinicians, scientists and patients.
The full name for fatty liver disease is now metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease or MASLD. Until recently it was called non-alcohol related fatty liver disease or NAFLD. The more serious form of the disease is called MASH (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis), previously known as NASH. You might hear any of these names being used.
The British Liver Trust are changing how we refer to NAFLD and NASH. But we can’t simply swap to using the new names. The challenge with changing the name of a disease is that it takes a long time for everyone to get used to it. It’s a bit like changing the name of a company – think of Twitter changing to X.
At the moment, most patients are still using the name NAFLD or fatty liver disease. Our 2024 Patient Survey asked people living with fatty liver disease what name they would use to find information on the internet. More than half (58%) said they would look for information about NAFLD – either in full or as an acronym. Nearly a quarter (23%) would search for fatty liver disease. While only 5% of respondents would use MASLD.
Some clinicians, especially in the liver community, have already switched to using the new names instead of the old ones. But many are still using fatty liver disease or NAFLD. We’re particularly aware of healthcare professionals who aren’t liver specialists, and are less likely to have heard about the change, but are still vitally important for patient care. Such as GPs, hospital consultants with other specialties, such as cancer or gastroenterology, palliative care nurses, and dietitians.
More widely, organisations like the NHS are still using the name NAFLD. Realistically the public, media and policy-makers are unlikely to know either the old or the new names – but it’s essential they can easily understand information about the disease.
All these people and groups need to be able to communicate with each other. The person seeing a news story about fatty liver disease needs to have a conversation with their GP. They may also then speak to a gastroenterologist and a dietitian. An MP seeing the same story may speak to their local health board. Healthcare professionals need to have conversations with one another.
The role of the British Liver Trust is to help those conversations be clear, so people get the diagnosis and treatment they need quickly and understand their condition. That means leading from the middle, and striking a balance between early adopters and those who will take a long time to know or use the new names.
In our communications and information, the Trust will use fatty liver disease as the main name, as it’s the most easy to understand. We will always include MASLD, and usually NAFLD, along with an explanation of what they mean. Like in the box at the top of this page, for example.
We have already updated our online information on fatty liver disease. Over the next weeks we’ll update other parts of our website and our downloadable resources. Printed resources like booklets will take longer to change. New media, policy and awareness activities take this approach – for example our Global Fatty Liver Day campaign in June. The other thing we’ll be doing is keeping an eye on how the names are being used, so we can keep pace and change what we’re doing over time.
