ArticleNature medicine2026
Prospective validation of imaging and serum diagnostic biomarkers of steatohepatitis and fibrosis in MASLD: the LITMUS Imaging Study.
Article in Nature medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Noninvasive testing for fibrosis and cirrhosis in MASLD.Nature reviews. Gastroenterology & hepatology · 2026Article
- Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Disease and Genetic Risk in Germany-An Observational Real-World Cohort Study.United European gastroenterology journal · 2026Observational
- Noninvasive surrogate endpoints in MASH trials: current perspectives and challenges.Hepatology international · 2026Review
- Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
40 authors.
Funding
Abstract
There is a need for robust evaluations of noninvasive biomarkers for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. This prospective multicenter study assessed the diagnostic accuracy of imaging (including liver stiffness measurement (LSM) using magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) and FibroScan (vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE)), serum biomarkers (including NIS2+) and composite scores (including Agile 3+ and Agile 4) for centrally read steatohepatitis and fibrosis. For cirrhosis, several biomarkers exceeded the minimum acceptable performance criterion (MAC), including MRE (area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) 0.91; P < 0.01), VCTE-LSM (AUC 0.87; P < 0.01), Agile 3+ (AUC 0.89; P < 0.01) and Agile 4 (AUC 0.88; P < 0.01). Among 357 participants, fibrosis stages F0-F4 were present in 12%, 16%, 25%, 32% and 15%, respectively. NIS2+ had the highest diagnostic accuracy among serum biomarkers for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH; AUC 0.83) and at-risk MASH (MASH with at least stage 2 fibrosis; AUC 0.82), although neither significantly exceeded the MAC (P = 0.15 and P = 0.19). Among imaging biomarkers, MRE showed the highest performance for MASH (AUC 0.71) and at-risk MASH (AUC 0.75), but these remained below the MAC. For fibrosis staging, performance was stronger: MRE met the MAC for advanced fibrosis (AUC 0.91; P < 0.01), as did Agile 3+ (AUC 0.84; P = 0.03). For cirrhosis, several biomarkers exceeded the MAC, including MRE (AUC 0.91; P < 0.01), VCTE-LSM (AUC 0.87; P < 0.01), Agile 3+ (AUC 0.89; P < 0.01) and Agile 4 (AUC 0.88; P < 0.01). Serum biomarkers tended to outperform imaging for identifying at-risk MASH, whereas elastography and composite scores showed excellent accuracy for staging advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.