View clinical trials related to Biliary Cirrhosis, Primary.
Filter by:Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a chronic liver disease primarily affecting middle age women. It is characterized by immune-mediated damage to cells lining the tiny bile ducts within the liver. Although the underlying cause of PBC is likely to be multifactorial, the epidemiologic/population data indicate a very important role for genetic predisposition, meaning that the disease seems to run in families. Susceptibility genes for PBC have not been identified possibly due to limitations such as small sample size in prior studies. The primary objective of this study is to identify these genes. This study involves obtaining clinical and demographic data as well as collecting DNA samples from patients and their parents, and siblings to screen for a select set of candidate genes as well as the full genome for variants associated with PBC.
Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a disease of the liver, which predominantly affects women. It causes slowly progressive liver disease, which eventually causes liver failure, requiring a liver transplant. Several different studies of large patient cohorts indicate that the cause of this disease is likely due to a combination of factors including genetic and environmental. PBC is associated with several other "autoimmune diseases" - recently a gene has been identified to be abnormal in individuals with another autoimmune liver disease, namely rheumatoid arthritis. This gene usually tells the body when to switch off an immune response. This study plans to identify whether individuals diagnosed with PBC have a similar abnormality in this gene called protein Tyrosine Phosphatase.