Aspirin may reduce liver fat in patients with metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD).

Patients with the disease may be at an increased risk of liver cirrhosis or hepatic cancer.

In a recent phase II trial published in JAMA, researchers randomly assigned 80 patients with metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease to receive either low-dose aspirin or placebo daily for six months.

The participants underwent noninvasive blood- and imaging-based tests to detect liver fat, inflammation, and fibrosis. After the study period, the researchers found that liver fat content decreased by 6.6% among patients in the low-dose aspirin group and increased by 3.6% among those in the placebo group—representing a difference of 10.2%. Further, those who received low-dose aspirin experienced improvements in several markers of liver health.

Despite the positive findings, the researchers emphasized that more studies may be needed to determine whether longer-term aspirin use may reduce the risk of complications in this patient population. 

The study’s limitations include a small sample size, short follow-up period, and being conducted at a single center, which limits generalizability. It focused on changes in liver fat rather than comprehensive liver histology or clinical outcomes like cirrhosis or death. Baseline differences between groups may have caused confounding, and multiple imputation for missing data assumed data were missing at random—a potentially biased assumption that could not be verified.

Disclosures can be found in the link below.

Source: JAMA