Kick-start for metabolomics in liver disease.

Abstract

It is not complicated for the clinician to diagnose a patient with advanced fibrosis or liver cirrhosis when he has already presented some decompensation of his liver disease. However, it is in the earliest stages when the patient's prognosis can be modified the most. Since liver disease is generally asymptomatic, not invasive markers are of great relevance. In the era of omics, it is time for metabolomics to accompany genomics and proteomics, which are more established in the diagnostics and prognostics clinical toolbox. Metabolomics, understood as the comprehensive evaluation of the metabolites present in the organism in a specific physiological situation, has undoubted advantages in the study and identification of serum markers relevant to a specific pathology. Last year, I read with interest two articles published in this journal: "Baseline metabolites could predict responders with hepatitis B virus-related liver fibrosis for entecavir or combined with FuzhengHuayu tablet" by Dai et al and "Metabolomics in chronic hepatitis C: Decoding fibrosis grading and underlying pathways" by Ferrasi et al. Both papers illuminate the power of metabolomics to provide us with new tools in the management of liver disease. In this editorial, I comment on these studies and others, and note how they can contribute to our understanding of liver disease in more than one way.