Active clinical trials for "Fatty Liver"

The purpose of this study is to see if the HepaFat-Scan (a special sequence of images done in a MRI) can accurately detect the amount of fat in the liver.

Ultrasound (US) B mode image is an alternative method to measure tissue structure and has proven to be an accurate technique to measure subcutaneous fat thickness. However, pressing the transducer onto the skin with too much force will significantly reduce the subcutaneous adipose tissue thickness. In this study, a force controlled system combined with US transducer was used for 3D subcutaneous fat imaging and reconstruction.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is present in one third of the population and due to its potential to cause irreversible liver damage and liver cancer, it is a significant health burden. There is a strong link between obesity and NALFD. As fat accumulates, the body is unable to process it, leading to unhealthy fat metabolism. Currently, other than lifestyle measures and better control of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) with medication, there is no drug that can prevent or reverse the liver damage. Furthermore, there is no easy way to identify which person will go on to develop the liver damage. Mounting evidence suggests that inflammation in the fat has a key role in driving liver damage, particularly by the immune cell called the macrophage. However, detailed mechanisms are lacking. Therefore, the aim of this proposal is to study obese patients with NAFLD to better understand the link between unhealthy fat metabolism and liver damage, focusing on identifying macrophage-derived drug targets which can potentially reverse the liver disease. Samples of fat and liver from patients who are having bariatric surgery at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust will be analysed to identify and target the inflammatory markers of unhealthy fat and NAFLD using genetic profiling techniques.

This clinical study will involve performing a series of medical imaging procedures of the abdomen using both ultrasound and MRI modalities in subjects at risk for or already diagnosed with Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). The primary objective of this clinical study is to evaluate the clinical feasibility of an investigational ultrasound technique for quantifying liver fat by comparing specific ultrasound-derived biomarkers with the liver fat percentage obtained from MRI Proton Density Fat Fraction (MRI-PDFF) measurements. All subjects enrolled in this study will undergo one investigational abdominal ultrasound examination using the Philips EPIQ Ultrasound System and one MRI PDFF examination according to the clinical standard of care.

Early screening and monitoring of chronic liver diseases in hepatology practice has become crucial. To achieve this goal, hepatology clinics need simple and available tools at the point-of-care to perform disease severity assessment. The objective of this study is to assess the performance of a new non-invasive ultrasound-based system for the assessment of liver fibrosis and steatosis severity, via ultrasound biomarkers such as tissue stiffness (correlated to fibrosis severity) and ultrasound tissue attenuation (correlated to steatosis extent).

This study will evaluate the association of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and diabetes mellitus. Patients presenting in our clinic with Diabetes mellitus type 1 or 2 will receive the following examination: Transient Elastography and Controlled Attenuation Parameter using the FibroScan blood examination including biochemical markers The statistically calculated sample size needed is 340 patients.

HepQuant tests are new liver tests that are being developed to accurately measure liver function with sensitivity and specificity while being safe and non-invasive. The primary goal of this study is to define the intra-individual reproducibility of the HepQuant tests, that is, to see if a person is given the tests several times that the test results are essentially the same each time. Subjects for this study will include healthy controls and patients with chronic liver diseases. The chronic liver diseases will include hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and a serious form of fatty liver disease, known as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The HCV and NASH patients will include men and women, and those with early stage and late stage liver disease as defined by the amount of fibrosis observed in their liver biopsies. Once a subject has been enrolled in the study they will be given the HepQuant tests on three separate days within the span of one month. The hypothesis of this study is that HepQuant tests will reproducibly report liver function in healthy controls and patients with all stages of chronic HCV and NASH liver disease and that liver function will decrease as the amount of liver fibrosis increases in the chronic liver disease patients.

Lovaza is the only fish oil supplement approved by the FDA. It is available by prescription for the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia (> 500 mg/dl). The primary mechanism appears to be a reduction in hepatic production of triglycerides. Also decreases the hepatic production of very low density lipoprotein (VLDL). There also may be antioxidant properties as well. The thought behind using Lovaza as a treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is two fold. It would help in the decrease production of triglycerides by the liver and have antioxidant properties decreasing the production of free radicals in the liver. In doing so, steatohepatitis, fibrosis, and perhaps cirrhosis and liver cancer would be prevented.

Iron excess is increasingly regarded as an important cofactor in the morbidity attributed to many disorders. Assessment of body iron stores by measurement of serum ferritin concentrations has poor specificity and the most reliable method is histological or biochemical assessment from a liver biopsy. Because liver biopsy is an invasive procedure, imaging methods have been developed to detect and quantify hepatic iron content. The aim of the study is to use a simplified magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique to quantify simultaneously iron and fat contents in the liver and to compare the results to the quantification obtained biochemically.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a high-fructose diet, either by high fructose intake from complex, natural foods or by fortifying the diet with corn syrup, affects the metabolism. Furthermore, it will be investigate if there are differences between obese and normal weight participants.