Active clinical trials for "Liver Cirrhosis"

The investigators wish to investigate how the Continuous Reaction Time (CRT) method can be used in the diagnosis and monitoring of covert hepatic encephalopathy (cHE)in patients with cirrhosis of the liver. The hypothesis is that the CRT method (duration 10-2 minutes) can serve as a tool in the diagnosis and monitoring of cHE and is an alternative to using the Portosystemic Encephalopathy Test (PSE)(duration 20-25 minutes).

Several studies have shown in patients magnesium deficiency with liver cirrhosis. Patients with liver cirrhosis showed considerably reduced muscle strength and muscle magnesium. We suggest addition of magnesium to patients with established cirrhosis in order to reduce the neuromuscular and neuropsychiatric manifestations of chronic liver disease.

The non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis in chronic viral hepatitis B and C is now entering clinical practice. It is based on blood tests, especially FibroMetre® and Fibrotest® and on elastography with the Fibroscan®. Despite the overall satisfactory diagnostic performance for all of these tests (AUROC ranging from 0.80 to 0.90 depending on the study) for the discrimination of F≤1 versus F≥2, the positive and negative predictive values , however, are far from be perfect in a given patient. With these technique, failures are also possible and the measures do not meet quality standards that increase the risk of misclassification. It would be particularly useful to have new generation techniques with a better diagnostic performance. In this project, in response to the problems presented above, we propose to evaluate the diagnostic performance of five innovative ultrasonic techniques for the non-invasive diagnosis of fibrosis.

A point-of-care bleeding management protocol based on global viscoelastic test (thromboelastometry) can change the amount of blood products used during orthotopic liver transplant.

All patients eligible for TIPS (Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt) procedure will be considered for inclusion. After written inform consent, psychometric tests in order to calculate the psychometric hepatic encephalopathy (PHES) score, the gold standard for the diagnosis of minimal encephalopathy and critical flicker frequency (CFF) will be performed before the TIPS procedure. After TIPS, patients will be followed during one year and the psychometric test and CFF will be performed every 3 months. 30 patients will be included. The main endpoint is the success rate of CFF. The secondary end points are Correlation between CFF and PHES score Performance of CFF and PHES score to predict the occurrence of overt encephalopathy after TIPS procedure A sample collection during TIPS procedure is also performed for validation of biomarkers

This clinical investigation of the hepatocyte matrix implant is an evaluation blinded non-randomized and monocentric pilot study of Phase I, which is conducted as a therapeutic investigation. Randomization is not possible due to ethical and practical reasons. Pending approval of the ethical committee the study will also be conducted in Indonesia. This new treatment procedure has already been successfully used on the basis of compassionate use in Germany. The hepatocyte matrix implant is a new patented procedure consisting of bio-matrix technology. A formaldehyde-free special matrix consisting of self-dissolving polymers is applied as a carrier substance and is cultivated with human autologous cells using a special technique. Clinically the bioartificial liver replacement tissue for patients with end-stage hepatic disease has been developed as a first application. In this procedure autologous hepatocytic tissue and pancreatic tissue is removed (liver resection and pancreatic biopsy) from the patient in a first surgical procedure. The tissue is sent to a specialized Cell Culture Laboratory. The laboratory is GMP certified for this procedure. The cells are processed according to SOPs in a special perfusion procedure and prepared on several platelets of matrices (platelets of 20 mm diameter and 4mm thickness). After completion of the laboratory process the biotissues are implanted into the mesentery of the small intestine during a second operation. The cells are growing controlled on the matrix, take on the capillaries of the patient and thus connect to the blood circulation. The implanted cells multiply by a specific factor and independently take over the metabolic function of the original liver after two to four weeks. In the following process the carrier matrix dissolves completely and implanted cells develop into liver cell tissue.

To Elucidate and Confirm the Theory of XuSunShengJi in the Traditional Chinese Medicine Etiological Pathogenesis of Liver Cirrhosis.

Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver is a common clinical and histological condition associated with metabolic syndrome in patients with and without excess body weight. It represents the most common cause of liver disease in the western world and it is characterized by an excess accumulation of fatty vacuole within hepatocytes. Patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) can progress to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and then into cirrhosis and its complications. The prevalence of hepatic steatosis goes from 16 to 31% in the general population, from 50 to 80% in the obese population and up to 96% in morbidly obese patients. As the majority of obese individuals have NAFLD, non-invasive and widely applicable screening tools for the assessment of liver fibrosis and steatosis are needed. The detection in early stages is the main predictive factor of the long-term outcome. Liver biopsy has traditionally been the gold standard for the assessment of patients with NAFLD, although the well-known limitations. Among the non-invasive tools available in the market, the FibroScan® (Echosens™, Paris, France) has been shown to be a useful tool for diagnosing fibrosis and steatosis in patients with suspected NAFLD. The FibroScan® is an ultrasound-based vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE™) device dedicated to liver stiffness measurement (LSM) and the controlled attenuation parameter (CAP). Several clinical studies have shown the benefit of measuring hepatic stiffness with the FibroScan® in overweight/moderately obese persons. The ability to identify significant fibrosis and cirrhosis has been demonstrated in normal and overweight patients affected with chronic hepatitis B and C, biliary diseases, alcohol related liver disease and NAFLD. However, subcutaneous fat attenuates the transmission of shear waves into the liver and the ultrasonic signals used to measure their speed of propagation. When scanning morbidly obese patients (BMI≥35 kg/m²) with the XL+ probe, unreliable results occur mainly due to obesity. Therefore, the XL probe has been enabled to expand the applicability of the FibroScan® but, the realization of the XL+ examination is still very difficult in the case of morbidly obese patients. This is why to reduce this failure rate, Echosens has worked on developing the XXL probe specifically for measuring the LSM in morbidly obese patients.

The main objective is to determine the performance of the simple eLIFT blood test for advanced liver fibrosis screening in NAFLD and/or alcoholic patients in primary care.

The project is about evaluation of albumin and midodrine versus albumin alone in outcome of refractory ascites in patients with decompensated cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is a leading cause of disability and mortality worldwide. Cirrhosis occurs in 50% of patients over 10 years. Decompensated cirrhosis carries a poor prognosis because the median survival time is about 2 years and it imposes a heavy burden on health care costs mainly due to the need for repeated hospital admission. The mortality is approximately 40% at 1 year and 50% at 2 years (12.7 per 100,000 population). A lot of times the prognosis is poor and the main factors leading to it are - AKI/HRS-NAKI, Hyponatremia, Grade of ascites-Refractory ascites, Sarcopenia, low Mean arterial pressure. Post review of the literature, it is realized that there are some gap areas - It is unknown whether combination of vasoconstrictor with albumin further decreases the need for paracentesis in patients of refractory ascites. There are no studies till date on using combination of vasoconstrictor with albumin for refractory ascites. There are no studies evaluating the prevalence and incidence of HRS-NAKI using the new definitions in patients with refractory ascites and impact of combining vasoconstrictor and albumin in improving renal outcomes in these patients.