From queues to questions: Reflections on EASL’s Love Your Liver campaign in Amsterdam

This May, the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) brought the EASL Congress 2025 to Amsterdam, where 7,725 delegates gathered from around the globe.As Europe's leading event in hepatology, the Congress provides a platform for clinicians, healthcare professionals, researchers, scientists, and patient advocates to showcase cutting-edge clinical and basic science, foster collaborations and be at the forefront of scientific and clinical advancements in liver health.This year, however, another dimension was added.Upon arrival, the delegates were greeted by a highly unusual sight.Hundreds of Dutch citizensmany with families, friends and folding chairs in tow -waited patiently in long queues, some for as long as seven hours, to take part in what turned out to be an unprecedented public awareness campaign.EASL's now-annual flagship initiative, Love Your Liver, marked its fourth edition with recordbreaking success.Over the course of the five Congress days, 20 volunteers, operating six Fibroscan TM devices, tested over 840 members of the public.The disease awareness campaign garnered broad attention from local and national media, with coverage across major newspapers, morning radio, and national television.Demand for the liver testing so exceeded EASL's expectations that testing capacity needed to be doubled on the second day.Overnight, this apparent demonstration of public interest in the liver became the talk of the Congress and beyond.In this editorial, we reflect on the current events, outline the transformation of Love Your Liver from a small side event to an impactful project, and explore the opportunities as well as complexities of delivering public awareness in tandem with an international congress.In 2021, the EASL-Lancet Commission published a landmark report detailing the status of liver disease and care in Europe in the 21 st century. 1 "A fundamental shift", former EASL Secretary General Tom Karlsen and colleagues wrote, "must occur, in which health promotion, prevention, proactive case finding, early identification of progressive liver fibrosis, and early treatment of