Effectiveness of Ultrasound in Liver Stiffness and Fat Quantification

October 26, 2023 updated by: King's College Hospital NHS Trust

Real-time Elastography for Non-invasive Assessment of Liver Fibrosis and Fat Quantification Techniques for Assessment of Fatty Change in Chronic Liver Disease

Liver stiffness is a marker for scarring of the liver, which occurs after damage from various liver conditions. Scarring prevents normal liver function and can lead to liver failure. Fatty liver is a common cause of liver damage and can contribute to scarring.

Currently, liver biopsy serves as the 'gold standard' for assessing the degree of liver scarring and fatty infiltration, guiding treatment decisions. However, liver biopsy poses a significant risk of death and unpleasant side effects, including internal bleeding and pain. Moreover, due to the small sample of liver tissue obtained during the biopsy, the results can be misleading and may not provide an accurate overview of the liver's health. Therefore, there is an unmet need for a non-invasive method of measuring liver stiffness and fat content.

Ultrasound-based methods utilize various properties of ultrasound waves to assess liver stiffness and fat levels. This study aims to recruit 100-120 patients with chronic liver disease. The investigators will assess liver stiffness and fat levels during patients' hospital visits for routine scans, biopsies, or clinic appointments. The resulting measurements of liver stiffness and fat obtained through ultrasound-based methods will be compared to patients' routine liver biopsies, routine FibroScan results (another non-invasive method routinely used in clinical care to assess patients' liver stiffness), and other non-invasive severity scores (calculated from results obtained from patients' routine blood tests, providing an overview of the extent of liver damage).

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Elastography and fat quantification techniques are imaging methods integrated into the normal B-mode ultrasound. These techniques are extremely safe, with no additional risk compared to a normal ultrasound study. The advantage of using liver elastography/fat techniques to assess the degree of liver fibrosis/fatty change is that the techniques are non-invasive (no needles or biopsies) with higher patient acceptance and compliance. Shear wave elastography is a non-invasive technique that can quantify liver stiffness by measuring the speed of shear waves in the tissue of interest. Early studies have shown that the speed of the shear wave is closely associated with different stages of liver fibrosis. It has also been shown that the measurements can be reproduced by different investigators. Fatty changes, assessed by measurements called TAI, TSI, and EzHRI, are in the early stages of investigation and are proving to be robust. Early studies are mostly performed using elastography have been investigated using Fibroscan (vibration shear wave generator) techniques, and to a lesser extent using point and 2-D shearwave elastography. Fat quantification is also undertaken on the Fibroscan system, producing a Controlled Attenuation Parameter (CAP) measurement which can be correlated both to the fat quantification methods and biopsy result. The investigators have, through a previous project, demonstrated that liver stiffness, using point shear wave, on other machines can accurately identify different stages of liver fibrosis. The investigators would like to extend the study to include a further commercially available machine, namely Samsung RS85 Prestige, to study its diagnostic accuracy of point and 2-D elastography and the fat quantification techniques. As more machines with similar capabilities for stiffness and fat assessment become available, data would be collected from these also. In addition, this study will enrich scientific evidence in terms of how accurate elastography/fat assessment is as a method of measuring liver stiffness/fatty change and hopefully reduce the need to perform liver biopsy in the future.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

180

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 Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

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

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  1. >=18 years old
  2. Male or Female
  3. Suspected chronic liver disease based on clinical history, serum biochemistry, prior imaging or prior liver biopsy
  4. Willing and able to provide written informed consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Liver transplantation within the last six months
  2. Suspected or known acute liver disease
  3. Focal liver lesion(s)
  4. Age <18 years old
  5. Pregnant women

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: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Liver Biopsy Cohort
Diagnostic test: Ultrasound based Elastography and fat quantification
Correlation of ultrasound-based elastography and fat quantification on liver biopsy

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Diagnostic accuracy of liver elastography compared to histological staging
Time Frame: 3 years
Comparison of ultrasound elastography measures and biopsy based fibrosis scores
3 years
Diagnostic accuracy of liver fat quantification compared to histological assessment
Time Frame: 3 years
Comparison of ultrasound fat quantification measures and biopsy based fat percentages
3 years

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

King's College Hospital NHS Trust

Collaborators

Samsung Medison

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 (Actual)

January 2, 2023

Primary Completion (Estimated)

January 2, 2025

Study Completion (Estimated)

July 2, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 14, 2023

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 26, 2023

First Posted (Actual)

November 1, 2023

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

November 1, 2023

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 26, 2023

Last Verified

October 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 212836

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

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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