Active clinical trials for "Hepatitis, Alcoholic"

Alcoholic hepatitis is related to very high mortality rate. About 40% of the patients are died within first 6 months after the detection of the clinical syndrome. Therefore, it is very essential for proper diagnosis and early treatment. In response to acute or chronic liver damage, bone marrow derived stem cells can spontaneously populate liver and differentiate into hepatic cells. Animal and human studies suggested that injured hepatocyte may be replaced by pluripotent bone marrow cells. However, this hepatocyte repopulation is highly dependent on varieties of liver injury and therapeutic conditions6. The studies has suggested Granulocyte-colony stimulating factors (G-CSF) can regenerate hepatocyte by fusing with hematopoietic cells, thereby enhancing the liver histology and survival rate. G-CSF is a cytokine capable to regulate a number of functions in neutrophils. In three recent studies mobilization of bone marrow stem cells induced by G-CSF was observed in patients with alcoholic hepatitis. In two of this studies there was a survival benefit with the use of G-CSF. Alcoholism leads to decrease in endogenous antioxidant potential. Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) patients show low endogenous antioxidants. Chronic ethanol consumption cause selective deficiency in the availability of reduced glutathione (GSH) in mitochondria has been reported. This is due to impaired functioning of GSH transporter from cytosol to mitochondrial matrix. The effect on glutathione replenishing potential by N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) can be used to reduce oxidative stress, which also has excellent safety profile. Therefore, NAC can be used for severe alcoholic hepatitis treatment due to its therapeutic potential factor. NAC also inhibit apoptosis and pro-inflammatory cytokine production. In a study high doses of intravenous N-acetyl cysteine therapy for 14 days conferred neither survival benefits nor early biological improvement in severe alcoholic hepatitis patients with adequate nutritional support.However, these results must be viewed with caution, since the study suffered from a lack of power. In a recent study, NAC and corticosteroids combination therapy benefits among patients with severe acute alcoholic hepatitis in 1 month survival, although the final outcome at 6 month survival was not improved. There are no studies on the use of combination therapy of NAC plus G-CSF in patient with severe alcoholic hepatitis. Therefore we plan to study the safety and efficacy of combination therapy of G-CSF and NAC in the patients with alcoholic hepatitis.

The patients of Severe Alcoholic Hepatitis (SAH) will be included in study based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. The patients will be then randomized in 3 groups for therapy. They will receive either steroid or Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (GCSF) or both. They will be followed for atleast 90 days for improvements in symptoms and various predefined parameters. Primary outcome will be improvement in survival at 90 Days. Patients will be monitored at every follow up for disease progression and complications of therapy. The study results will be analyzed for differences in survival rate and complications in different groups to propose new therapeutic guideline in SAH patients.

Study population: Patients attending the Out Patient Department and admitted to Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences. Study design: Prospective randomized controlled trial Study period: One year- January 2017- December 2018 Sample size: 130 (65 cases in each group) Intervention: The subjects will be given Fecal Microbiota Transplantation through a NJ tube placed after admission to the hospital. Participants will be administered the processed fecal microbiota sample collected from a related or unrelated healthy donor for a period of 7 days. Monitoring and assessment: The recipient will be monitored every day after Fecal Microbiota Transplantation therapy. The recipient will undergo physical examination, complete blood counts, at baseline and a chest X ray, serum procalcitonin, CRP and Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha levels, Liver Function Tests, Kidney Function Tests, International Normalized Ratio and arterial ammonia, at day 0,4,7,14,28,90,180,270 and 365 from the start of therapy. Microbiota analysis of the donors will be done at baseline and the recipients will be done on day 0,7,28,90 & 180.

Alcoholic hepatitis represents one of the more serious forms of alcoholic liver disease. Critically ill patients with alcoholic hepatitis have high morbidity and mortality rate. Because of data suggesting that the pathogenic mechanisms in alcoholic hepatitis involve cytokine release and the perpetuation of injury by immunologic process, corticosteroid has been extensively evaluated in the treatment of alcoholic hepatitis. Although there are discrepancies in literature as several randomized trials and meta-analyses have reached contradictory results, corticosteroid for a subset of patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis, defined as a discriminant function ≥ 32, who also have no concomitant gastrointestinal bleeding, active infection, renal failure, and pancreatitis, has been recommended. This latter point emphasizes the important of meticulous selection to avoid the side effects of corticosteroid. Thus, the beneficial effects seems confined to a highly selected minority group in which the inhibitory effect of corticosteroid on liver inflammation is not outweighed by side effects such as weakened defense against infection, anti-anabolic effects, and possible ulcer-promoting effects causing gastrointestinal bleeding, which may be deleterious in these critically ill patients. Newer understanding of the role of the role of TNF-α expression and receptor activity in alcoholic liver injury has prompted to an examination of TNF inhibition as an alternative to corticosteroid for severe alcoholic hepatitis. Pentoxifylline, a nonspecific TNF inhibitor, recently has been demonstrated in a randomized trial to improve survival in the therapy of severe alcoholic hepatitis. In particular, the survival benefit of pentoxifylline appears to be related to a significant reduction in development of hepatorenal syndrome. These results are promising, and support the need to further evaluate the potential of this new therapeutic avenue. There is a need for head to head comparison of corticosteroid and pentoxifylline in severe alcoholic hepatitis. At the time the current study was designed (2008), corticosteroid was first-line treatment for severe alcoholic hepatitis. This study was designed to demonstrate that the effect of pentoxifylline was similar (i.e., not inferior) to that of prednisolone, an active form of prednisone. The aim of the present study was thus to compare the effects of pentoxifylline and prednisolone on the short-term mortality.

Approximately 50% of patients admitted for severe AH will have spontaneous improvement of liver function before initiation of therapy (ie decrease in mDF between hospital admission and initiation of steroids). These patients have a better prognosis than patients without spontaneous improvement of liver function. It has never been demonstrated that corticosteroids improve survival in severe AH patients with spontaneous improvement of liver function. Our hypothesis is that severe AH patients with spontaneous improvement of liver function represent a group who could most benefit from steroids

Granulocyte colony stimulating factor in acute liver failure and alcoholic hepatitis

Alcoholic liver disease has become one of the foremost causes of chronic liver disease across the world, and a cause of considerable morbidity and mortality. Alcoholic steatohepatitis is an entity in this broad spectrum, with severe alcoholic hepatitis transitioning to acute on chronic liver failure carrying a one month mortality of as high as 20 to 50%. The current management guidelines for severe alcoholic hepatitis show benefit with prolonged alcohol abstinence, nutritional support, the use of corticosteroids, pentoxifylline or N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) and early liver transplantation. However, major studies and meta-analyses have demonstrated that these interventions, with the exception of early liver transplantation, do not improve mortality rates to the level of statistical significance. Owing to the high short term mortality associated with severe alcoholic hepatitis, the inadequacy of a treatment that could significantly impact this short term mortality, and the limited applicability of early liver transplantation, a study on newer modalities of treatment is warranted. The role that human gut microbiota plays in health and disease is receiving considerable attention. Targeting intestinal dysbiosis, a phenomenon found to be intricately linked with the causation of alcoholic hepatitis, could provide insights into novel therapeutic strategies. Fecal microbiota transplantation is a novel approach that has gained widespread acceptance in in the management of recurrent severe Clostridium difficile infection. It's role is also being studied in other diseases where an association with gut dysbiosis has been found, such as in inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. The role of FMT has also been studied in liver diseases such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), liver cirrhosis and primary sclerosing cholangitis. In this process, a diseased recipient is transferred fecal material containing the microflora of a healthy individual. It limits the colonization of pathogens, inducing colonization resistance, affects microbiota composition in the gut, as well as metabolism in the microbial pathogens. FMT helps alleviate gut dysbiosis and restores gut microbial diversity. Our aim is to evaluate the role of FMT on short term survival and improvement in scores of prognostic significance (CTP, MELD, MELDNa, mDF) in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis.

Patients with alcoholic hepatitis non-responsive to steroids have a poor prognosis. Recently a French-Belgian prospective study has obtained good results (acceptable survival with a low rate of alcohol recidivism). The hypothesis of the present study is that carefully selected Spanish patients with alcoholic hepatitis that do not respond to steroid therapy may have a good survival if they receive a liver transplant. The expected rate of alcohol recidivism in such a selected population will be low.

Loss of total mass of muscles (catabolism) is a serious clinical problem in patients with alcoholic hepatitis. The liver might play an important role in this stress-catabolism by increasing the production of urea during the inflammatory process. The purpose of this study is to examine the regulation of urea synthesis in patients with alcoholic hepatitis and to study the effect of the anti-inflammatory drugs prednisolone and pentoxifylline on this regulation.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the production, effects and interactions of the hepato-protective cytokine interleukine (IL)-22 in patients with alcoholic hepatitis.