Prime Highlights-
- EASL-Lancet Commission publishes second report driving new WHO action on liver health across Europe.
- World Health Assembly resolution leads to launch of WHO, Imperial College London and EASL Collaborating Centre.
Key Facts-
- New centre covers 53 WHO European Region member states, targeting earlier detection nationwide.
- Community testing, AI tools and the PROMISE trial support Europe’s early diagnosis push.
Background-
The European Association for the Study of the Liver and The Lancet Liver Commission has published a second report aimed at turning evidence into action to improve liver health across Europe, building on recommendations set out in its original commission report.
Titled From Evidence to Impact, the report reviews progress since that first publication and sets out practical steps to strengthen prevention, detection and treatment of liver disease across the region.
It comes as steatotic liver disease continues to grow steadily in prevalence across Europe, accounting for around one in 20 hospital admissions in the UK alone.
Professor Debbie Shawcross, secretary general of the European Association for the Study of the Liver and a co-author of the report, said liver disease was rising even as many other chronic conditions were declining, and called for stronger collective action to reverse the trend.
She said the first report faced strong competition from commercial determinants of health rather than falling short due to its recommendations, and noted growing momentum behind early diagnosis efforts over the past year.
Following the report’s publication, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution placing steatotic liver disease within the global response to non-communicable diseases.
This led to the launch of a new World Health Organization, Imperial College London and EASL Collaborating Centre, the first body mandated to translate the resolution into national action across the 53 member states of the WHO European Region.
Initiatives already showing promise include automatic hepatitis testing in emergency departments, mobile screening units in shopping centres and community-based testing programmes held in accessible local venues, including places of worship.
Professor Shawcross also highlighted the PROMISE trial, which she leads, exploring whether gut bacteria transplants could reduce infection risk in cirrhosis patients, alongside growing use of artificial intelligence and non-invasive tools such as FibroScan to identify at-risk groups earlier and guide their care. She said the shared goal was to keep building on this momentum so liver disease deaths across Europe begin to fall steadily in the years ahead.
