Utility of Fibroscan in Estimating Hepatic Iron Concentration

January 13, 2016 updated by: University of British Columbia

Utility of Transient Elastography (Fibroscan) in Estimating Hepatic Iron Concentration in Comparison to MRI in Patients With Transfusion Dependent Hemoglobinopathies

In patients with hereditary anemias (e.g. thalassemias), defective red blood cells are produced due to an error in the genes, or DNA, that provide the instructions for their synthesis. As a result, hereditary anemias are characterized by chronically low hemoglobin, which is contained inside red blood cells and carries oxygen throughout the body. In more severe cases, patients are dependent on frequent blood transfusions to replenish the hemoglobin.

The body has limited ability to get rid of excess iron. However, with repeated blood transfusions, the iron level in the body builds up because the red blood cells contain iron as heme. Over time, the high level of iron accumulates in organs such as the heart, liver, and pancreas causing heart problems, liver failure, and diabetes. As a result, patients who receive multiple blood transfusions need to be monitored for iron overload, and be started on medical therapy in a timely fashion to prevent organ damage.

Liver is usually the first and the most affected organ by iron accumulation, so knowledge of its iron concentration provides estimate of total body iron load. Liver biopsy is the gold standard in measuring the iron concentration in the liver, but it is invasive and cannot be performed on routine basis. MRI is another option that can assess liver iron concentration non-invasively, and is currently recommended for monitoring iron load on a yearly basis. However, MRI has a high cost and is not easily accessible in Canada. The investigators aim to determine if transient elastography (Fibroscan), which is a form of ultrasound that measures liver stiffness, can accurately assess liver iron concentration.

Hypothesis:

Fibroscan reading correlates with MRI and serum ferritin in estimating hepatic iron concentration.

Study Overview

Status

Unknown

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Inclusion criteria: All adult patients (age 19 or greater) with hereditary anemias requiring chronic blood transfusion at St. Paul's Hospital will be invited to participate in this study. The majority of patients will be β-Thalassemia Major. They will be given a pamphlet containing the details of the study and can contact the research assistant or clinic nurse for more information should they be interested.

Exclusion criteria: Patients with known Hepatitis B positive, known Hepatitis C positive, known HIV positive, known liver cirrhosis, known primary liver disease such as Wilson's disease and hereditary hemochromatosis are excluded from the study.

Written consent will be obtained from all participants by the clinic nurse/research assistant prior to enrollment.

Study procedures:

Data to be collected retrospectively from patient charts (St. Paul's Hospital's EMR/Sunrise Clinical Manager and paper chart) include: baseline demographic data (age, gender, hematological condition), medical comorbidities and complications related to iron overload (Diabetes, hypothyroidism, cardiomyopathy/arrhythmia and congestive heart failure, hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, osteopenia and osteoporosis syndrome..etc), current medications including use of iron chelators such as desferrioxamine, deferasirox, deferiprone or combination therapy, viral hepatitis status (B and C) and date of test, liver cirrhosis status (stage), liver biopsy result (iron concentration) and date of procedure. Patients with chronic transfusion requirement usually undergo annual MRI at the beginning of the year to estimate hepatic iron concentration as per standard practice. This year (2013), R2 MRI (FerriScan) will also be available for the first time to all patients in BC as part of routine monitoring for iron overload. Details/results from both techniques (i.e. same images collected in one scan, but analyzed differently using R2 and T2* algorithms) will be collected.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Anticipated)

30

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Canada
    • British Columbia
      • Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, V6Z 1Y6
        • St. Paul's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

19 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • All adult patients (age 19 or greater) with hereditary anemias requiring chronic blood transfusion at St. Paul's Hospital will be invited to participate in this study. The majority of patients will be β-Thalassemia Major.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Known Hepatitis B positive
  • Known Hepatitis C positive
  • Known HIV positive
  • Known liver cirrhosis
  • Known primary liver disease such as Wilson's disease and hereditary hemochromatosis

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: DIAGNOSTIC
  • Allocation: NA
  • Interventional Model: SINGLE_GROUP
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
OTHER: Fibroscan
Subjects enrolled will undergo Fibroscan. It is an affordable and noninvasive tool for measuring liver stiffness as a predictor of liver fibrosis. Fibroscan reading will be collected at the Gastroenterologist's (Dr. Ko) outpatient clinic (Pacific Gastroenterology Associates) where a qualified research nurse/assistant will perform the scan under supervision of the physician. Anticipated timing of this procedure will be October to December 2013
Procedure: Fibroscan
Transient elastography (Fibroscan®) is an affordable and noninvasive tool for measuring liver stiffness as a predictor of liver fibrosis. Since Fibroscan® measures liver's stiffness, its utility is not limited to fibrosis, and has been extended to other conditions that would increase the liver's stiffness, such as amyloidosis (Loustaud-Ratti et al. Amyloid 2011) and perhaps iron overload.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Fibroscan reading collected at the Gastroenterologist's outpatient clinic
Time Frame: 1 year
Fibroscan results will be compared to that of T2* MRI, R2 MRI (FerriScan) and serum ferritin using linear regression models to determine if there is any correlation between FibroScan® results and liver iron concentration, which is indirectly measured with MRI and serum ferritin.
1 year

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of British Columbia

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Hatoon Ezzat, MD, Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology St. Paul's Hospital, University of British Columbia
  • Principal Investigator: Hinhin Ko, MD, Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, St. Paul's Hospital, University of British Columbia

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

October 1, 2013

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

December 1, 2015

Study Completion (ANTICIPATED)

December 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

February 18, 2014

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 19, 2014

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

February 20, 2014

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE)

January 14, 2016

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 13, 2016

Last Verified

January 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • H13-02149

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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