View clinical trials related to Portal Hypertension.
Filter by:The worldwide obesity epidemic has led to an increase in the proportion of patients with chronic liver disease due to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and in the prevalence of obesity in patients with cirrhosis of all etiologies. The reported prevalence of obesity in patients with cirrhosis is of 30% which appears similar to that of the general population. Bariatric surgery is currently considered as the most effective and durable means for the management of morbid obesity as it is associated with the remission and/or improvement of many obesity associated comorbidities as well as improved quality and expectancy of life. However, the surgical risk is increased compared to individuals without cirrhosis, and determining the risk/benefit ratio of bariatric surgery in the setting of cirrhosis is a complex task further hampered by the lack of randomized controlled trials. The Nationwide Inpatient Sample study reported a slightly increased rate of mortality of bariatric surgery in the setting of compensated cirrhosis compared to individuals without cirrhosis (0.9% vs 0.3%). Interestingly, this risk was as high as 16.3% in individuals with decompensated cirrhosis (16.3%). However, this study has been published more than 10 years ago and the mortality of bariatric surgery has decreased significantly and is around 0.1%. Furthermore, the introduction of transient elastography in clinical practice has allowed the early identification of patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) at risk of developing clinically significant portal hypertension (CSPH). A few series including a limited number of patients have been published indicating that CSPH should not be considered as a formal contraindication for bariatric surgery. This study is meant to assess the outcomes of bariatric surgery in patients with morbid obesity and compensated advanced chronic liver disease (cACLD) (currently synonymous of the term "compensated cirrhosis'') associated with clinically significant portal hypertension (CSPH) in a large multicentric, multinational series.
Portal hypertension (PH) is a group of syndromes characterized by abnormal changes in the portal blood flow system, mostly caused by cirrhosis. It is an important factor affecting the clinical prognosis of cirrhotic patients, and its severity determines the occurrence and development of cirrhotic complications. Clinically, measurement of portal venous pressure directly is highly invasive, and factors such as intra-abdominal pressure changes can interfere with the results, limiting its clinical application. Hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) is the gold standard for assessing PH in cirrhosis. The normal range of HVPG is 3~5 mmHg, and HVPG ≥5 mmHg indicates the presence of PH. AASLD stated that HVPG ≥10 mmHg is defined as clinically significant portal hypertension (CSPH), and the risk of decompensation events is significantly increased at this stage. However, HVPG is an invasive test, which is unacceptable to some patients, such as being expensive, difficult to repeat, and poor patient compliance. Non-invasive tests for PH include serological tests, anatomical imaging and combination models. Imaging evidence of portal collateral circulation or hepatic blood flow in the portal venous system based on ultrasound Doppler, CT or magnetic resonance imaging techniques can assist to diagnose PH. In addition, elastography techniques such as transient elastography, point shear wave elastography, two-dimensional shear wave elastography and magnetic resonance elastography can be used to measure liver stiffness and spleen stiffness to assess PH. Some biochemical markers are also considered as non-invasive tests for PH. However, the available biomarkers are not yet a substitute for the HVPG accurately, and therefore, there is an urgent need for the development of biomarkers associated with HVPG in clinical practice. Metabolomics is a method to analyze the concentrated changes of endogenous small molecule metabolites under the combined effect of genetic, biological and environmental factors with the help of various high-throughput technologies. Metabolites are at the end of the biological information flow, and their changes are the ultimate expression of the information from the coordinated action of each group, objectively reflecting the overall changes of the organism. Currently, metabolomics techniques have been widely used in screening biomarkers of liver diseases. Wang et al. applied GC-TOF/MS and UPLC-QTOF/MS to study the urinary metabolomics of patients with hepatitis B cirrhosis and showed that α-hydroxymaurolate, tyrosine-betaine, 3-hydroxyisovaleric acid, knife-serine succinate, estrone and GUDCA were significantly altered in different Child-Pugh grades of cirrhosis, suggesting that these metabolites are potential biomarkers to identify different pathological stages of cirrhosis. Therefore, metabolomics is a reliable and valid tool for biomarker discovery. In conclusion, this study analyzed significantly altered metabolites in patients with hepatitis B cirrhosis using metabolomics to explore potential differential metabolites that are highly correlated with HVPG. Further, serological biomarkers were identified as an alternative to HVPG testing through model construction and validation.
Patients with established liver cirrhosis, or end-stage liver disease (ESLD), are at high risk of developing liver cancer (hepatic carcinoma; HCC), portal hypertension, and sarcopenia, all which lead to significant morbidity and mortality. In this patient group the annual incidence of HCC is c. 2-8% and these patients are therefore included in ultrasound HCC screening programs every 6 months. In this study, the investigators are aiming to assess sarcopenia, clinically significant portal hypertension (CSPH), and HCC with a single short magnetic resonance (MR) examination. A neck-to-knee MRI-examination will be acquired to derive body composition profile (BCP) measurements including visceral and abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (VAT and ASAT), thigh fat free muscle volume (FFMV) and muscle fat infiltration (MFI), as well as liver fat (PDFF), spleen volume, and liver stiffness. Images will be further processed by AMRA Medical AB. AMRA's solution includes FFMV in the context of virtual control groups (VCG; using AMRA's vast database) and MFI. Furthermore, the spleen volume will be used to monitor the development of portal hypertension and explored together with other BCP variables in relation to hepatic decompensation events. HCC screening will be performed using so-called abbreviated MRI (AMRI), which consists of time series of contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. The AMRI images will be read by an experienced radiologist. In the literature the sensitivity of AMRI to detect HCC is above 80%, with a specificity of c. 95%, compared to ultrasound sensitivity of 60%. In treating ESLD there is a desire of physicians to be able to predict future decompensation events in order to initiate treatment to prolong survival. Moreover, the ability to assess processes of sarcopenia in the patient would be highly valuable for clinical practice due its severe clinical impact. Finally, ultrasound-based HCC screening has poor diagnostic performance and a MR-based screening approach would significantly improve treatment outcome as more treatable and earlier HCC may be identified.
How to construct a novel, non-invasive, accurate, and convenient method to achieve prediction of hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) is an important general problem in the management of portal hypertension in cirrhosis. We plan to investigate the ability of three demensional-magnetic resonance elastography (3D-MRE) to establish a risk stratification system and perform tailored management for portal hypertension in cirrhosis.
This is an open-label, non-randomized trial that will be conducted at three clinical sites, Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and University of Bern (UB). Enrollment will be allocated into one of 4 different cohorts depending on the inclusion criteria for each cohort. Cohort 1: Patients scheduled for hepatic vein pressure gradient (HVPG) measurements will subsequently undergo two consecutive SHAPE (subharmonic aided pressure estimation) procedures using different ultrasound contrast agents (Definity [Lantheus Medical Imaging, N Bilerica, MA, USA] and Sonazoid [GE Healthcare, Oslo, Norway] in randomized order) to estimate portal pressures with a Logiq E10 scanner (GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, USA) and determine the reproducibility of the SHAPE algorithm. Cohort 2: Patients identified as having clinically significant portal hypertension (CSPH) will be monitored by SHAPE with Sonazoid for the duration of this project (18-24 months on average). These subjects will have follow-up ultrasound scans every 6 ± 2 months to check for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (using the Barcelona-Liver Cancer staging system) as well as ascites and at those times a repeat SHAPE examination will be performed. Liver stiffness values will be measured with elastography as well. This cohort will examine if serial SHAPE can accurately predict development of ascites and other liver related events in patients with compensated cirrhosis undergoing routine HCC surveillance in a multi-center setting. Cohort 3: Subjects newly diagnosed with portal hypertension and starting treatment with non-selective β-blockers will be monitored with SHAPE and results compared to elastography measurements of liver stiffness with standard assessments (e.g., serum liver function tests and measurement of spleen size as well as platelet count). This cohort will establish if SHAPE can be used to monitor treatment response in patients identified with portal hypertension. Cohort 4: Patients with compensated advanced chronic liver disease scheduled for an endoscopy examination for screening of varices relative to the Baveno VI and the expanded-Baveno VI criteria as well as the AST to Platelet Ratio Index will undergo a SHAPE examination. This cohort will compare the predictive ability of SHAPE for allocating patients with compensated advanced chronic liver disease to screening of varices compared to the current standard of care.
Portal hypertension contributed to the main complications of liver cirrhosis. Currently, hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) was the reference standard for evaluating portal pressure in patients with cirrhosis. However, the practice of HVPG is limited to require the extensive experience and highly specialized centers. In recent years, non-invasive methods were proposed to predict the degree of cirrhotic portal hypertension. Liver stiffness is currently the most widely used method for noninvasive assessment of portal hypertension. The renewing Baveno VII recommended that liver stiffness ≥ 25 kPa by transient elastography is sufficient to identify clinically significant portal hypertension (specificity and positive predictive value > 90%). Although liver stiffness has a good predictive value for evaluation of clinically significant portal hypertension, it is difficult to apply in primary hospitals due to expensive equipment. Recently, a multicenter study has shown that artificial intelligence analysis based on ocular images can aid to screening and diagnosis hepatobiliary diseases. The patented technology of collecting and analyzing diagnostic images of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) based on mobile phone terminals has been realized. This technology mainly includes image acquisition, quality control and analysis, and clinical information collection. Liver cirrhosis belongs to the diseases of bulging and accumulation in TCM, and the most common symptoms are the liver and gallbladder damp-heat and liver stagnation and spleen deficiency. The main contents of inspection diagnosis in TCM for liver disease include the images of the tongue, eye and palms. In our study, the patented technology of TCM based on artificial intelligence is applied to establish a precise evaluation model of traditional Chinese and western medicine for portal hypertension with cirrhosis by combining the macroscopic characteristics of images and microscopic pathological indicators.
In this study, the investigators compared the improvement of liver reserve function related indicators in patients with liver cirrhosis after laparoscopic splenectomy and azygoportal disconnection. To determine whether surgical treatment can help enhance postoperative liver reserve function and improve patient prognosis.
Portal hypertension contributed to the main complications of liver cirrhosis. Currently, hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) was the reference standard for evaluating portal pressure in patients with cirrhosis. However, the practice of HVPG is limited to require the extensive experience and highly specialized centers. In recent years, non-invasive methods were proposed to predict the degree of cirrhotic portal hypertension. Of them, liver stiffness measured by transient elastography had shown good performance for predicting clinically significant portal hypertension. However, liver stiffness only has a good correlation with portal pressure in the early stage of portal hypertension (HVPG<10 mmHg), because liver fibrosis is the main cause of portal hypertension in this period. In the stage of clinically significant portal hypertension (CSPH) (HVPG≥10 mmHg), increased portal vein inflow due to splanchnic vasodilation and hyperdynamic circulation, spleen stiffness may have a better correlation with HVPG than that of liver stiffness. Several studies have explored the combination of liver stiffness, platelet count and spleen stiffness for varices screening. However, there are few studies to report the above parameters for assessing CSPH and unneeded HVPG avoiding. Since the spleen was stiffer than the liver, the current vibration-controlled transient elastography examination is dedicated to the liver, rather than the spleen. Very recently, a novel spleen-dedicated stiffness measured by transient elastography was proposed. The prospective, multicenter study aims to add spleen stiffness as a supplementary parameter to establish new criteria for identify CSPH in patients with compensated cirrhosis, with a dedicated probe on transient elastography equipment to assess spleen stiffness and liver stiffness, and further develop a novel model based on spleen stiffness for predicting the liver decompensation in patients with compensated cirrhosis.
This study will directly compare the endoscopic ultrasound guided approach to obtain adequate liver biopsies and portal pressure gradient measurements to the current standard of care which uses the transjugular approach.
The project is essential to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in patients with Chronic Liver Disease (CLD). The impact has been felt due to direct risk of COVID infection in self, or in caregivers, lack of access to services during lockdown, interruptions in transplant listing and waitlist mortality. Briefly, the following points will be focused during the study. 1. Long haul COVID-19 related symptoms. 2. Impact on health and delay in interventions or drug therapy due to interruption of physical outpatient services. 3. Impact on emergency admissions due to refractory ascites, new decompensation, variceal bleeding etc 4. Impact on delayed transplant listing and waitlist mortality 5. Impact on post-transplant patients with lack of access to drug monitoring/ physical OPD 6. Impact on delay in interventions due to hepatobiliary malignancy. 7. Effects of COVID-19 infection, vaccination (single dose, two doses) and no vaccination and protective antibody levels in patients with chronic liver disease and post-transplant recipients. 8. Determination of dose protocol and need for booster vaccination in patients with CLD and post liver transplant recipients.