Replies to post #3308 on Galectin Therapeutics Inc. (GALT)

[sokol]

Galectin-3 inhibitor improves hepatic ballooning in NASH

This is a link to an article about the presentation Apri 14 at the Liver Congress in Paris:

https://www.healio.com/hepatology/steatohepatitis-metabolic-liver-disease/news/online/%7Bc68938d1-b7cf-47b2-9154-f6e3e5b38e6c%7D/galectin-3-inhibitor-improves-hepatic-ballooning-in-nash

Here is something else I found about about hepatic ballooning in NASH:

Hepatocellular ballooning is a key feature required for the diagnosis of NASH and a component of currently used histological grading and staging systems of NAFLD. However, it represents an ill-defined form of liver cell injury associated with cell swelling and rounding of the cytoplasm, the detection of which is prone to intra- as well as inter-observer variation. Some of the factors that may contribute to ballooning are the rearrangement of the intermediate filament cytoskeleton, accumulation of small-droplet fat in the cytoplasm and dilation of the endoplasmic reticulum. The rearrangement of the intermediate filament cytoskeleton can be demonstrated by the loss of keratin 8/18 immunostaining of the cytoplasm, and may thus be evaluated in the future as a marker for the more objective detection of hepatocellular ballooning in NASH.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21476917

The following is a paper dated in 2017 about lack of therapies for treatment of NASH and unmet accellerated need.

Current and future treatment options in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)
Nikos Lazaridis & Emmanuel Tsochatzis
Pages 357-369 | Received 08 Nov 2016, Accepted 07 Feb 2017, Published online: 16 Feb 2017
Download citation https://doi.org/10.1080/17474124.2017.1293523

Introduction: Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a chronic liver disease that can progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Diagnosis of NASH requires a liver biopsy and is defined as presence of hepatic steatosis, ballooning and lobular inflammation with or without fibrosis. Although NASH is the most common cause of liver disease in the west world and among the top three indications for liver transplantation, there are no universally accepted pharmacological therapies and therapeutic advances have been slow.

Areas covered: Current evidence about lifestyle interventions, bariatric surgery and pharmacotherapy is reviewed. Dietary recommendations and lifestyle interventions have shown promising results but are difficult to maintain. At the moment, there is no universally approved medical treatment for NASH. Pioglitazone and vitamin E are recommended by guidelines in selected patients. An increasing number of phase II and III trials in non-cirrhotic NASH are currently recruiting and their preliminary results discussed.

Expert commentary: As NASH is classified as a medical condition of an unmet therapeutic need, it has gained an accelerated access pathway for drug approval based on surrogate endpoints. It is therefore expected that within the next five years, there will be at least one approved agent for the pharmacological treatment of pre-cirrhotic NASH.