Active clinical trials for "Liver Cirrhosis"

Chronic hepatitis B virus infection is a common condition in Zambia. Among Zambian blood donors, up to 8% are chronically infected with HBV. Despite the burden, awareness of HBV is low in Zambia and the Ministry of Health is in early stages of development of guidelines for HBV screening, treatment, and prevention. The purpose of this clinical cohort study is to characterize the clinical features of chronic HBV infection at UTH and describe treatment and care outcomes. The investigators will enroll 500 adults and follow the cohort for up to 5 years to assess short and long-term viral, serologic, and liver outcomes such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Auricular neurostimulation is a potential novel and non-invasive method of pain control following liver transplantation in a growing patient population with the probability of significant impact on economics and morbidity. The investigators propose a pilot study to investigate the effects of auricular neurostimulation in patients receiving a liver transplantation. The investigator will investigate the effects of auricular neurostimulation with this novel device and compare it to the current standard of care for pain management following liver transplantation.

Research question: Do oral probiotics in patients with cirrhosis and ascites reduce intestinal bacterial concentrations, ascitic bacterial DNA, SBP and bacteraemia compared to antibiotics or placebo? This study is designed to investigate the effects of an oral probiotic (VSL#3; a mixture of "healthy" bacteria for the intestines) compared to an antibiotic or placebo in preventing infection developing in the abdominal fluid ("ascites") that collects in patients with advanced liver disease ("cirrhosis"). Patients already having had infection will be excluded from the study. Clear inclusion and exclusion criteria will be met and patients will be monitored throughout the study to examine whether they have required more hospitalisations, their rate infection in abdominal fluid or elsewhere and the level of liver function.

The specific aims for this study are: To determine if sonographic findings predict the risk of progression of liver disease to cirrhosis by comparing cystic fibrosis subjects with heterogeneous echogenicity pattern on ultrasound to those with normal echogenicity pattern on ultrasound To develop a database and biorepository of serum, plasma, urine and DNA to aid the investigations in ascertaining the mechanisms, consequences, genetic risk factors and biomarkers for the development of cirrhosis To determine if there are differences in health related quality of life, pulmonary or nutritional status in children with cystic fibrosis who have a heterogeneous echo pattern on ultrasound compared to those who have a normal echo pattern on ultrasound To determine if Doppler velocity measurements of hepatic and splenic vessels predict an increased risk for the development of cirrhosis. To determine if cirrhosis on ultrasound progresses to portal hypertension during the study period To determine if homogeneous liver progresses to either cirrhosis or heterogeneous liver. To determine the frequency of complications of portal hypertension during follow up in those identified with cirrhosis by year 6 of the study

Two groups of patients with minimal hepatic encephalopathy will be studied. The treatment group (n=17) will receive whole milk (24 g lactose) and the control group (n=17) will receive "lactose-free" milk (3.5 g of lactose) two times a day for 21 days. Clinical history, nutritional assessment, biochemical studies, psychometric tests, critical flicker frequency and a quality of life questionnaire will be performed. The patient will be assessed weekly 21 days. An external monitor will control the randomization process in order to allocate the patients into both study group and will not share the assignation codes with anyone until the end of the study.

Primary To evaluate the efficacy of satavaptan on top of diuretic drugs in reducing the recurrence of ascites. Secondary To evaluate the tolerability and safety of satavaptan on top of diuretic drugs over a 52-week treatment period in participants with cirrhosis of the liver and recurrent ascites. The one-year double blind placebo controlled period is extended up to 2 years in a long term safety study (PASCCAL-2).

Primary: To evaluate the efficacy of satavaptan in the absence of concomitant diuretic drugs in reducing the recurrence of ascites. Secondary: To evaluate the tolerability and safety of satavaptan in the absence of concomitant diuretic drugs over a 52-week treatment period in patients with cirrhosis of the liver and recurrent ascites. The one-year double blind placebo controlled period is extended up to 2 years in a long term safety study (PASCCAL-2).

It is a fase I/II clinical study to evaluate feasibility, safety and kinetics of cellular therapy with bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (ABMMC) in patients with liver cirrhosis. All the patients have moderate liver disfunction and a waiting time expectancy of liver transplantation longer than 12 months due their low MELD score. The ABMMC are labeled with 99mTc and infused through the hepatic artery. Scintigraphy is performed 2 and 24 hours after infusion. Patients are submitted to frequent clinical, laboratorial and image evaluation during the follow up period of 12 months.

This Phase 4, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study will evaluate the pharmacokinetics (PK) and safety of OCA treatment in participants with PBC and moderate to severe hepatic impairment over a 48-week treatment period. Participants who have completed their 48-week double blind treatment period will continue double-blind treatment until all randomized participants have completed their 48-week treatment period and the database for that period is locked. An open-label extension study in which all participants receive OCA will be considered following review of blinded safety and PK data.

This study is a randomized controlled trial comparing a simple telehealth intervention implemented after hospital discharge to standard of care, specifically looking at the number of hospital readmissions throughout the course of the study. All cirrhotic patients admitted to the Hepatology service at The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania will be approached and consenting patients will be randomized to one of the two arms as outlined below. Patients will be followed for 90 days with daily texts and weekly phone calls. The rates of 30 and 90 day readmission as well as the days to readmission will be compared between the two study groups.