View clinical trials related to Liver Transplantation.
Filter by:Immunosuppressive (IS) agents are effective treatment to avoid acute or chronic rejection after pediatric liver transplantation. However, long-term side effect of IS intaking, like infection, kidney dysfunction, metabolic disorders and developmental retardation, should be aware, especially in pediatric recipients. Spontaneous immune tolerance is defined as recipients who cease to taking IS agents due to multiple reasons and the liver function maintained normal. However, the real ratio and safety of immune tolerance in pediatric liver transplantation recipients are rarely known. We would like to investigate the ratio and safety of spontaneous immune tolerance in pediatric liver transplantation recipients during long-term follow-up by constructing an immune tolerance cohort. In this cohort, long-term pediatric liver transplantation recipients with normal liver function and taking monotherapy of IS would be involved. The IS strategy would be monitored and adjusted according to the "Clinical guidelines for pediatric liver transplantation in China(2015)". For recipients suffering refractory virus infection, such as EBV or CMV infection, IS will be minimized to assist the clearance of virus until IS was weaned off. Since most of pediatric liver transplantation recipients may encounter chronic EBV or CMV infection within one year after transplantation, they may need IS minimization during follow-up. During the process of IS weaning off, liver function, immunological status and intrahepatic pathology will be closely monitored. If acute rejection or other complications were found, increase of IS dosage or other related treatments will be applied. Immune tolerance is defined as liver function and intrahepatic pathology maintain normal for more than one year after stop taking IS. At the end of study, the ratio of immune tolerance, acute rejection and all types of complications will be assessed.
Background The risk of cancer in liver transplant recipients is twice the cancer risk in the general population and de novo cancers are one of the leading causes of death after liver transplantation. The immunosuppressive medication, used to prevent organ rejection, is considered a key factor increasing the risk of de novo cancer. Objectives I. Determine prevalence and incidence of de novo cancer in liver transplant recipients and build an algorithm to identify high-risk individuals II. Investigate if opportunistic viral infections (as a surrogate for over-immunosuppression) is associated with non-virus associated de novo cancers III. Investigate if cell free DNA fragmentation can be used to identify liver transplant recipients with de novo cancers and to identify cancer at an asymptomatic stage Methods The study is in collaboration with all five Scandinavian liver transplant centers in ScandiaTransplant (Copenhagen, Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki) and includes all liver transplant recipients from the centers. Data on demographics, de novo cancer and risk factors are retrieved from electronic health records, cancer registries and the ScandiaTransplant database (n=3628). Blood samples to perform viral and cell free DNA fragmentation analyses are retrieved from the biobank at Rigshospitalet (n=932). Implications The study includes a large cohort of liver transplant recipients from all of Scandinavia. With cancer as one of the primary causes of death in liver transplant recipients, new tools are needed to identify recipients with increased risk of developing de novo cancer. In particular, new tools allowing early diagnosis of de novo cancer enabling curative intended intervention. The study has potential to identify liver transplant recipients with increased risk of developing de novo cancer and reduce cancer related mortality.
To investigate the variations in the humoral response to vaccines for the prevention of COVID-19 in liver transplant patients based on the type of immunosuppressive therapy adopted (tacrolimus based vs no-tacrolimus based) and immunosuppressive blood levels.
Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) is the most common liver malignancy and the third leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Due to the shortage of donor organs and the risk of tumor recurrence after transplantation, the restrictive Milan criteria is the standard guideline for liver transplantation (LT) in patients with HCC and liver cirrhosis. The XXL study (Mazzaferro et al, 2020) is the first prospective trial validating that effective and sustained downstage therapy could expand the selection criteria and improve the prognosis of recipients with HCC beyond Milan criteria. However, the optimal DT protocol is poorly defined, especially in the Asian population. Recently, immunotherapies such as immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are revolutionizing the management of advanced HCC, the combination of the ICI and other treatment regimens (Anti-VEGF, locoregional therapies et al) produced superior results in patients with advanced-stage HCC compared to those with traditional therapeutic regimens. Therefore, we hypothesize an intensive downstage regimen containing immunotherapy could expand the selection criteria for HCC LT
The investigators attempted to evaluate whether the use of PAC is associated with better clinical outcomes after liver transplantation compared with the case without PAC.
To investigate the value of tumor feeding vessels deprivation combined with tyrosine kinase inhibitor in liver transplantation. Patients are enrolled into two groups according to the downstaging therapy they undergo before transplantion.
Because of the insufficiency of cadaveric organs and increasing need for organs, the interest in living donor liver transplantation have been greatly increased. The relative reduction of the remaining liver after the operation in Living Liver Donors makes it difficult and compelling to choose a very effective and very safe method in the management of postoperative analgesia. Opioids are the main agents used in the postoperative analgesia of Live Liver Donors. Opioids have serious side effects such as respiratory depression, apnea, circulatory collapse, coma, and death. Both short-term and long-term administration of opioids cause acute opioid-induced hyperalgesia. Ketamine, an NMDA receptor antagonist, has been hypothesized to counter opioid tolerance and NMDA receptor-mediated central sensitization. Various studies and systematic reviews have shown that low-dose ketamine has an opioid-sparing effect in all surgical patients. Although low-dose ketamine has been shown to be beneficial overall in relieving pain, it is unclear whether it has an identified benefit in hepatectomy cases. The aim of this clinical trial was to evaluate the effect of low-dose ketamine administration on postoperative analgesia in living donor liver donors undergoing right hepatectomy procedure.
The investigators attempted to investigate the association of the type of crystalloid administered during liver transplantation with postoperative clinical outcomes. The investigators hypothesized that the greater amount of normal saline or half-saline administered during liver transplantation might be associated with the increased risk of acute kidney injury compared to the balanced crystalloids.
Liver transplant recipients share the risk with cirrhotic patients for the development of inguinal hernias, but their liver failure pathophysiology has reversed following transplantation. Despite immunosuppression alters wound healing and infections, inguinal hernia repair in transplanted patients has shown better outcome compared to cirrhotic patients. Endoscopic inguinal hernia techniques have proved to be superior to open repair, due to lower incidence of postoperative complications and short-term convalescence, but there is no evidence of the use of this approach in liver transplanted patients. This prospective consecutive case series study will be the first study to describe the postoperative results of groin hernia repair in ambulatory surgery regimen in liver transplanted patients using totally extraperitoneal approach. The included patients will be prospectively registered in a standardized database. Rate of completion of surgery by totally extraperitoneal approach without the needing of conversion to anterior open approach or transabdominal preperitoneal approach due technical difficulties will be evaluated. Postoperative complications all along with quality standards criteria of ambulatory surgery will be reported for descriptive purposes.
With the increasing shortage of available donor organs, liver transplantation from donation after circulatory death (DCD) has been established in many countries to offer a therapeutic strategy for patients with end-stage liver disease beyond standard donation after brain death (DBD). In France, a controlled DCD (cDCD) program based on the use of normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) during organ procurement has been successfully implemented since 2015. This program has since shown excellent post-transplant outcomes with one-year patient and graft survival rates >90%. However, owing to very strict donor and graft selection criteria nearly one third of all potential liver grafts were not transplanted because of presumed poor quality. Furthermore, survival in cDCD liver transplantation which did not adhere to the current selection criteria was significantly lower (68% vs 94%) compared to the highly selected population. Thus, to further expand selection criteria and reduce discard rates without compromising outcomes, there is an urgent need for novel objective methods to assess graft quality prior to transplantation. Graft quality assessment prior to transplantation has been a key challenge in liver transplantation for decades and still today the decision to accept or decline a graft before transplantation relies for the most part on ''gut feeling" of the procurement or transplant team. Currently, selection criteria for cDCD in France are based on donor data, liver biopsy results and hepatocyte injury markers AST and ALT. While donor data are only indirect indicators of graft quality, liver graft biopsy are highly pathologist dependant and do not provide a dynamic assessment. Hepatocyte injury markers during normothermic perfusion have been shown to only have limited value in predicting post-transplant graft function. In addition, several recent studies have suggested a superior predictive value of specific biomarkers in the liver through metabolomics. There is growing evidence that dynamic graft preservation such as NRP may even allow a direct analysis of key injury metabolites within solid organ grafts. During cDCD procurement, liver grafts are exposed to donor warm ischemia which in combination with static cold storage causes ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) of the graft during implantation in the recipient. IRI is directly correlated to detrimental post-transplant complications such as primary non function and ischemic cholangiopathy or even recipient death. Studies in animal models have revealed that mitochondria play a major role in IR injury and several mitochondrial signature metabolites for example succinate have been identified in various solid organ grafts such as livers, hearts and kidneys. Based on these results, our team and others have recently identified the release of a small auto fluorescent molecular compound of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, Flavin Mononucleotide (FMN), during the early phase of hepatic I/R injury. Furthermore, FMN has been shown to serve as a surrogate marker for impaired cellular energy production of the liver graft prior to transplantation and enable accurate prediction of post-transplant liver graft viability. Given the natural fluorescence of FMN, a real time quantification method has been established allowing to rapidly assess viability of human liver grafts during the procurement process. Of note, a team from the United Kingdom has validated this real-time FMN quantification during NRP of cDCD liver grafts. Interestingly, since mitochondrial injury is a universal signature of graft injury during the transplant process, FMN has the potential to serve as viability marker in other solid organs such as hearts, lungs and kidneys. In addition, metabolomics approach allow the identification and quantification of many metabolites in a biological system through the use of high-throughput analytical technologies. It can give valuable information about what has, is and will occured in a specific tissu. In Liver transplantation, efforts have focused on studying early event of IR which are known to influence long term outcomes. It is however a complex pathway involving numerous metabolites. Metabolomic is therefore gaining interst in field of LT because it can enlight underlying metabolic process occurring during organ preservation and can lead the way toward a better evaluation of graft quality. Thus, this study aims at developing a robust bio-clinical prediction model of liver graft viability during NRP using in depth metabolomics of perfusate and tissue in combination with available donor and graft characteristics