Published On: 6/12/2024

Real World TARGET-NASH Analysis Shows High Concordance Between New MASLD Definitions and Prior TARGET-NASH Pragmatic Definitions

DURHAM, N.C., June 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- New publication from real-world evidence leader, Target RWE, in the American Journal of Gastroenterology found that 99% of TARGET-NASH participants met the new metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) diagnostic criteria – underlying a high concordance with the previous TARGET-NASH pragmatic definitions and relevancy of prior research.

The publication titled "High Concordance Between Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease in the TARGET-NASH Real-World Cohort" analyzed 5,745 adult patients in the cohort from 47 academic and 18 community practice centers across the United States.

"Our findings validate the accuracy and relevance of the TARGET-NASH cohort definitions. The liver community can be assured that the adoption of the MASLD nomenclature will not disrupt ongoing research on disease natural history, biomarker development, or therapeutic interventions for patients originally classified under the legacy definitions for MASL, MASH and MASH cirrhosis from TARGET-NASH," said A. Sidney Barritt IV, MD, MSCR, Professor of Medicine, Director of Hepatology, and Transplant Hepatology Program Director in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill. Dr. Barritt is the lead author and a TARGET-NASH steering committee member.

In 2023, Target RWE published research highlighting a noninvasive, simple, and practical risk score based on standard-of-care surrogate measures (FIB-4) to identify MASLD populations at high risk for adverse outcomes based on the following risk categories:

• Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) less than 1.3 and/or liver-stiffness measurement (LSM) measured by FibroScan less than 8kp;
• FIB-4 greater than 1.3 to less than 2.6 and/or LSM greater than 8 and up to 12.5kp; and
• FIB-4 greater than 2.6 and/or LSM greater than 12.5kp.

TARGET-NASH is a sub-cohort of Target RWE's longitudinal real-world liver disease registry of more than 400,000 patients and 15 million months of patient follow-up, called TARGET-LD. Target RWE launched the expanded, broader TARGET-LD registry in 2023 as the company partnered with AASLD to support its Cirrhosis Quality Collaborative (CQC) initiative of a Learning Health Network to improve the quality, safety, and value of care for patients living with chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.

The TARGET-LD registry captures real-world data on patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), chronic hepatitis b (HBV), cirrhosis and other liver diseases.

Target RWE announced its TARGET-LD registry enrollment milestone of 400,000+ patients earlier this month, and the company presented new TARGET-NASH studies at the 2024 European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) Congress on GLP-1 use and NASH-CHECK patient-reported outcome measures.

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