Active clinical trials for "Hepatic Encephalopathy"

This study seeks to assess the impact of the standardization of nursing supervision of patients with hepatic encephalopathy using a grid of appropriate surveillance for the prevention of complications in the ICU.

Minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) is a subclinical complication of liver cirrhosis with a relevant social impact. Thus, there is urgent need to implement easy to use diagnostic tools for the early identification of affected patients. This study was aimed to investigate cerebral blood flow, systemic hemodynamics as well as endothelial function of cirrhotic patients with MHE, and to verify their change after treatment with rifaximin.

Investigating the impact of hepatic encephalopathy on default mode networks within the brain to provide more clues with understanding the physiology of consciousness and predicting the reversibility of comatose states.

It has been observed that patients with cirrhosis present a generalized state of vasoconstriction as an homeostatic response to splanchnic arteriolar vasodilatation. On progression of the disease, vascular regulation is mismatched, causing altered systemic blood flow and lose in the cerebrovascular reactivity. The investigators hypothesize that the altered cerebrovascular reactivity induces neurological disturbances related to hepatic encephalopathy and, therefore, the existence of a correlation between cerebrovascular reactivity and the stage of hepatic encephalopathy.

Protein-energy malnutrition and muscle wasting are a common finding among patients with liver cirrhosis. Its prevalence may range from 50-90% depending on the methods used for nutritional assessment. Even stable cirrhotic patients referred as Child A have muscle depletion and the majority of patients classified as Child C have significant depletion. Malnutrition has been shown to be related to several complications of cirrhosis Despite the importance of nutritional status in patient's outcome, there is no gold standard for nutritional assessment. Traditional techniques used in healthy subjects to assess nutritional status cannot be used in cirrhotic patients due especially to ascites and peripheral edema, and altered rates of biochemical markers due to liver failure. Bioelectrical impedance vector analysis has emerged as a useful method to assess body composition and nutritional status especially in patients at the extremes of body weight (fluid overload, excess of adipose tissue, etc.). The aim of this study is to evaluate whether malnutrition assessed by bioelectrical impedance vector analysis is related to the development of hepatic encephalopathy

The purpose of the current study is to look into the pathogenesis of a severe medical condition causing acute episodes on the central nervous system as seen in majority of patients with liver cirrhosis.

Neuromonitoring of critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) is challenging. Clinical scoring systems produce insufficient information with deeply sedated patients, and disturbances of normal hemostasis limit the use of invasive intra-cranial pressure measurements. EEG based monitoring algorithms have been introduced into the operation theater and general anaesthesia, but these algorithms cannot be used in the intensive care setting without modifications. EEG is also susceptible to electrical disturbances, such as those created by patient movement. The study is conducted in Finland, in the intensive care unit of the Surgical Hospital of Helsinki. The total number of patients in this study is 20, and it is a part of a larger neuromonitoring study with a total of 110 patients. The patients are divided into four subgroups, as follows: 1. patients admitted to ICU with acute liver failure, 2. patients admitted to the postoperative cardio-thoracic ICU after cardiac surgery with perioperative total heart arrest, 3. patients admitted to the ICU because of status epilepticus and finally 4. patients in critical condition, admitted to the ICU after any surgery. This study concentrates on the first group of patients with acute liver failure. Clinical care of patients is not altered. When arriving into the ICU EEG-monitoring will added to routine monitoring. To evaluate the neurological status the following tests are performed: clinical test, blood tests and transcranial doppler ultrasound. The Entropy of EEG is measured along with the raw EEG signal. The recruiting of study patients was begun in December 2005 and the final study patients were recruited in December 2011. GE Healthcare Finland supplies the entropy monitoring devices and pays the salary of the research nurses who collect the study data. Clinical investigators will not receive funding from any commercial company. All patients (or their next of kin) included have given their written informed consent for inclusion in the study. The aim of this study is to find new factors and new non-invasive techniques, which correlate with the neurological state and outcome of patients suffering critical illness.

This study is a post-marketing observational study of lenvatinib in participants with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. The primary objective of this study is assessment of risk factors for hepatic encephalopathy.

We wish to study patients with liver cirrhosis during and 2 weeks after an acute episode of liver coma (hepatic encephalopathy). By means of Positron Emission Tomography we investigate; brain blood flow, brain ammonia uptake and brain oxygen consumption. We hypothesize that blood flow an oxygen consumption is diminished and ammonia uptake increased during an acute episode of hepatic encephalopathy.

This study included 20 patients listed for liver transplantation in addition to 20 age- and sex- matched controls. Neurological, psychiatric, laboratory and radiological examinations were performed for both patients and controls before and 6 months after liver transplantation. Assessment of cognitive functions by Trail Making Test A (TMT A), TMT B, Digit Symbol Test (DST), and Serial Dotting Test (SDT) was done before and after liver transplantation.