San Antonio is stepping into a national spotlight, and it is not for something anyone here actually wants. Local clinicians say the city has been picked as one of just four sites in the United States helping launch a major push to catch dangerous fatty liver disease earlier, before it quietly wrecks livers and lands people on transplant lists.
The project is focused on metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, or MASH, and will test blood and imaging markers that might flag the disease long before severe scarring sets in. Dr. Greg Gonzaba, who is leading the local enrollment effort, said his team is aiming to recruit about 200 participants and currently has around 10 people signed up.
According to the FNIH Biomarkers Consortium, the two year MASHtrack project will test whether noninvasive blood and imaging markers can reliably predict which patients with early fatty liver disease will go on to develop serious liver related events. If the data hold up, the group plans to seek Food and Drug Administration qualification for those biomarkers so clinicians can lean less on liver biopsy, an invasive and often stressful procedure.
Why San Antonio?
San Antonio was chosen in part because of its high local rates of obesity and diabetes, along with a large Hispanic population, factors local physicians say raise community risk for MASH. That mix, plus existing clinic networks, helped Gonzaba Medical Group land one of the four national recruitment sites reported by San Antonio Report.
Why Noninvasive Tests Matter
Recent reviews in major medical journals have documented rising MASLD and MASH prevalence and warned that these conditions are on track to drive more liver related illness across the country. Those reviews argue that better and earlier screening tools are badly needed.
The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the GLP 1 semaglutide (Wegovy) for MASH in August 2025 is cited as a turning point in that conversation, since any approved therapy is more likely to help if it is started before advanced fibrosis develops. Nature Reviews Cardiology and other recent analyses describe the growing clinical burden that is driving the push for noninvasive options, while regulators have outlined the details of semaglutide's approval.
How To Join The Local Study
Gonzaba Medical Group is overseeing local enrollment. The group offers in person pre screenings at its Woodlawn site and phone screenings for people who want to see if they might qualify. The research site lists the Woodlawn address and pre screening specifics, and local coverage notes a recruitment phone number that residents can call to ask about eligibility.
Study visits are compensated, but investigators caution that tight inclusion criteria mean it can take time to find hundreds of eligible participants at a single location. Interested San Antonians are directed to the practice's research page and local reporting for more details on how to sign up.
“Catching it earlier can be life saving for a lot of people,” Dr. Gonzaba told reporters, emphasizing why clinicians here have thrown their weight behind the effort. If MASHtrack succeeds in qualifying prognostic biomarkers, doctors could screen far more patients with simple blood or imaging tests and move them into treatment long before transplants or hospital stays enter the picture.
