S5 - E17.2 - Previewing EASL Congress 2024: Collegiality, Consortia & High-Quality MASLD Abstracts

Surfing the MASH Tsunami

This conversation starts and ends with thoughts from Michelle Long. Her first comment praises the expanded networking opportunities in the program, and her last comment focuses on the quality of the MASLD abstracts (really, all abstracts) and the importance of reviewing them in advance.
Michelle starts by commenting on the networking sessions that EASL is sponsoring around the large consortia and other projects. "It really speaks to how... open this community is to exploring different ideas and getting people together." She notes that these sessions have particular value for two groups: people just getting into the field and those looking for a potential collaborator. Aleksander describes these sessions as helping to support the big consortia by tying them into the networking sessions. It also demonstrates the way that academia, companies and public funders align on pivotal projects.
Roger comments that this is consistent with the generally high level of collegiality he sees in the hepatology community. In response, Aleksander states that the meeting will revisit EASL's mission and vision, which speaks to the many ways the organization can advance liver care.

Roger asks Michelle what else she anticipates eagerly about the Congress. Her reply? "Don't sleep on the abstracts." She starts reviewing the abstract book and quickly highlights 75 of interest, and then states there are far more than just those 75 that have high-level value. She notes that our fellow day Surfers, Aleksander, Hannes and Jörn, are authors of some of these. She describes the themes of linking and collaboration as coming through the abstracts. Finally, she recommends poster sessions as a place to dig into what lies behind the document for some pivotal pieces of research.

Roger invites Michelle to choose one abstract from her 75 with Aleksander, Hannes and Jörn as authors so that the three can describe their work.
The first abstract Michelle highlights has Aleksander as an author and is titled Longitudinal changes in liver stiffness measurements in a population-based screening cohort of 5,517 participants. Without revealing conclusions or interpretations, Aleksander describes the work his group did and then shifts focus to advocate that all listeners and attendees review abstracts extensively before coming to the meeting.
The second abstract Michelle highlights has Hannes as an author and is titled The validation of the Baveno Rule of 5 in a real-life multicenter cohort of patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. Like Aleksander, Hannes does not share data, but discusses how valuable a multicenter cohort can be in answering pivotal questions as compared to single-sample studies, "which cannot be replicated elsewhere."