Giuseppe Cullaro, Rajani Sharma, Jonel Trebicka, Andrés Cárdenas, Elizabeth C. Verna – 12 November 2019 – Acute‐on‐chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a feared complication that can develop at any stage of chronic liver disease. The incidence of ACLF is increasing, leading to a significant burden to both the affected individual and health care systems. To date, our understanding of ACLF suggests that it may be initiated by precipitants such as systemic infection, alcohol use, or viral hepatitis.

Kerstin Schneeberger, Natalia Sánchez‐Romero, Shicheng Ye, Frank G. Steenbeek, Loes A. Oosterhoff, Iris Pla Palacin, Chen Chen, Monique E. Wolferen, Gilles Tienderen, Ruby Lieshout, Haaike Colemonts‐Vroninks, Imre Schene, Ruurdtje Hoekstra, Monique M.A. Verstegen, Luc J.W. Laan, Louis C. Penning, Sabine A. Fuchs, Hans Clevers, Joery De Kock, Pedro M. Baptista, Bart Spee – 12 November 2019

AASLD members at all career stages are increasingly involved in social media like Twitter. This timely, lively discussion will explore the risks and benefits of tweeting from the perspectives of trainees, researchers, division leaders and journal editors.

AASLD Guideline/Guidance Statements on treating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) are now updated to reflect data published since 2010, when the previous versions were released. At this session, the guidelines’ authors will highlight important changes hepatologists should know and discuss controversial or challenging issues in treating patients with these chronic liver diseases.

Harmful alcohol use accounts for three million annual global deaths. Experts discuss the global health burden of alcohol-related liver disease (ALD), reporting on ALD’s impact in Africa, Latin America and Asia, region-specific factors that promote or hinder solutions and how forthcoming AASLD guidance on ALD may serve as a template to implement effective prevention and treatment strategies worldwide.

Discover how allocation impacts long-term outcomes for the transplant recipient and liver graft at this session. Speakers will address ways to improve the ability to interpret and identify the significance of long-term, post-transplant liver biopsy findings and offer tools to expand one’s perspective on individualizing immunosuppression to optimize long-term outcomes for the allograft and recipient.

Don’t overlook any of the groundbreaking basic science research presented at The Liver Meeting®. New this year, an expert will briefly review all the basic science abstracts presented at the meeting in one condensed session.

How can women with liver diseases or organ transplants have healthier pregnancies? Careful, multidisciplinary management is key. This session will provide key updates in this area, covering topics like contraception use and pregnancy management across a spectrum of liver diseases, including the liver transplant population.

HCV-infected organs are now being used for transplantation to HCV-uninfected recipients. This program will review existing data on both liver and non-liver transplantation from HCV-positive donors to HCV-negative recipients and key ethical and practical issues related to HCV-infected donor organs, including whether this should be done only in clinical trials or could be accepted as standard of care.

The annual Hans Popper Lecture clarifies exciting new findings on cellular renewal mechanisms in liver disease and liver cancer. A subset of hepatocytes with high levels of telomerase are distributed throughout the liver lobule, serving to renew the organ during homeostasis and in response to injury. Learn how genetic ablation of these hepatocytes results in scarring and defective regenrative responses.