Metabolomics-enhanced liquid biopsy identifies early heptocellular injury in females with MetALD

Background: Steatotic liver disease (SLD) is characterised by profound metabolic reprogramming, yet no single biomarker reliably distinguishes disease entities, stages or sex-specific risk profiles. By integrating serum metabolomic signatures as a liquid biopsy with tumour-associated CSC marker profiles in a sex-stratified analytical framework, we aimed to identify biologically meaningful differences and improve strategies for early, presymptomatic detection of SLD progression and HCC. Methods: The present study focuses on a targeted panel of strongly dysregulated serum metabolites as candidate biomarkers of disease progression, quantified by NMR-based metabolomics and ELISA and complemented by CSC marker staining. We combined these NMR-based metabolomic ‘liquid biopsy’ data with circulating tumour-associated biomarkers, MELD-based risk assessment and tissue-level CSC marker expression across MetALD, MASLD, immune-mediated and cancerogenic liver disease, HCC and healthy controls. Results: Female MetALD patients showed the second highest mortality after HCC, with lower survival than male cancer patients, despite MELD 3.0 assigning ~50% higher scores in women. MetALD mortality clustered with GP73, CD44, metabolomics and AA/3HB ratio, indicating a distinct, high-risk female phenotype. Conclusion: Integrating liquid-based metabolomic profiling, AA/3HB redox assessment, CSC markers and MELD 3.0 into sex-sensitive diagnostic pathways may improve early detection and risk stratification of alcohol-associated CLD, especially in women.