Consider strategies to evaluate disparities in access to and outcomes of liver transplantation based on gender, patient age, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status at this stimulating seminar from the Liver Transplant and Surgery SIG. Learn how to evaluate the latest interventions to minimize care disparities and promote better long-term outcomes in transplant patients.

AASLD President, Raymond Chung, will officially kick off The Liver Meeting® with opening remarks. Immediately following will be the President's Choice Lecture, featuring Dr. John D. Halamka, President of the Mayo Clinic Platform. Dr. Halamka will discuss emerging uses of novel data, AI, and devices that empower AASLD and their stakeholders.

What have we learned about managing liver disease patients in the COVID-19 era? This session will review timely topics, including COVID vaccination safety and efficacy in patients with liver transplant and chronic liver disease, long-term outcomes of COVID disease in patients with chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and how hepatology practice is adapting to new data and patient care challenges.

In an engaging case report format, experts review multidisciplinary care of a patient with cirrhosis, including perspectives of a dietitian, mental health provider, physical therapist, transplant surgeon, pharmacist and hepatologist. The session includes recommendations for care of patients with end-stage liver disease and setting appropriate treatment goals.

What are the most challenging scenarios faced by clinical hepatologists today? At this symposium, learners will explore the diagnosis and management of hepatic adenomas, bariatric surgery and liver transplantation, cannabis and coffee in liver disease, pre-liver transplant cardiac evaluation, and the management of pruritus in liver patients. Faculty will present the latest evidence-based management strategies and stimulate discussion.

This program combines didactic lectures and lively debate to examine controversies in the screening and prevention of clinically significant portal hypertension. Talks cover groundbreaking advances in basic, translational, outcomes, and clinical research in portal hypertension that may be incorporated into clinical practice, along with new pharmacologic interventions to prevent disease progression in these patients.

Complex multi-directional interactions occur between the gut microbiota and the liver. A disturbance of this delicate homeostasis can contribute to liver disease. Effects of untargeted microbiota therapies including antibiotics, probiotics and fecal microbiota transplantation, have been assessed in clinical trials.  Precision and targeted modifications such as engineered bacteria, postbiotics and phages, can precisely edit the microbiota and modify liver disease progression.

Robert S. Brown – 10 November 2021

Sarah Bernards, Ryutaro Hirose, Francis Y. Yao, Chengshi Jin, Jennifer L. Dodge, Chiung‐Yu Huang, Neil Mehta – 10 November 2021 – As a result of ongoing regional disparities, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) implemented policy in May 2019 limiting exception points for waitlisted patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) to median Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease at transplant in the area surrounding a transplant center minus 3 points (MMAT‐3). The impact of this policy change remains unknown.

10 November 2021