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CompletedNCT02506335Updated Aug 22, 2018

Liver Function Measured by HepQuant-SHUNT in the Prediction of Outcomes in Patients With Heart Disease

An Early Phase 1 interventional study of Cholate testing in Liver Disease and Cardiovascular Disease, sponsored by Northwestern University. Completed. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 70 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2018-08-22.

Sponsored by Northwestern University · Early Phase 1, Interventional, and Diagnostic

Phase
Early Phase 1
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
14
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years to 70 Years
Sex
All
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Study summary

Background: It is still difficult to predict the outcome in patients requiring Fontan Revisions and in those who have evidence of congestive hepatopathy and probable cirrhosis requiring major cardiac surgery including heart transplant. Over the years, many prognostic indices have been derived from laboratory results of blood tests, clinical and physiological variables (or some combination thereof), from liver imaging to liver histology, which has issues of sampling error, medical risks and technical difficulty. None of these have proved entirely satisfactory. Predicting morbidity or survival is particularly important when deciding about Fontan revisions versus the need for heart transplantation. What is needed here is a truly reliable test of liver function that can help predict outcome, on the basis of a single measurement within few days of a planned revision. For this purpose, it is desirable that the chosen tests of liver performance be safe, non-invasive, easy to perform, have a rapid turnaround for results, and be readily repeatable.

Tests of hepatic elimination of various exogenous substances have been described, such as galactose elimination capacity (GEC), indocyanine green (ICG) clearance, lidocaine metabolism to monoethylglycinexylidide (MEGX), and other tests that rely on liver metabolic capacity. None of these metabolic or clearance tests achieved widespread acceptance or use, mostly because their performance and analyses were cumbersome.

HepQuant,LLC has developed a platform of tests of liver function which include Systemic Hepatic Filtration Rate (HFR), Portal HFR, SHUNT, and Disease Severity Index (DSI)1,2. HepQuant tests specifically target the hepatic uptake of cholate and use a single noninvasive test of 90 minutes duration to quantify the systemic circulation, portal circulation, and portal-systemic shunt and to derive a DSI in intact human subjects. HepQuant tests can assess all stages and etiologies of liver disease. In chronic HCV patients HepQuant testing can predict which patients will respond to antiviral therapy and can measure the improvement in hepatic function that occurs after successful antiviral therapy. Patients who did not respond were followed for an average of 5 years and up to 8 years, and baseline HepQuant testing could predict clinical outcomes (CTP progression, variceal bleeding, encephalopathy, ascites, liver-related death) with 87% sensitivity and 71% specificity.

Read the detailed description

Hypothesis The results of HepQuant in patients with CHD will correlate with outcomes of cardiac surgery (namely morbidity as defined by complications such as ischemic hepatitis, survival, need for heart transplantation, improvement of liver function post revision), and thus can be used for prognosis in this condition, either alone or in conjunction with other clinical, physiological, and laboratory prognostic scores, thereby giving clinical guidance concerning the need for heart transplantation and simultaneous liver transplantation..

Primary Aim To assess the relationship between HepQuant testing results and clinical outcomes in patients with liver disease secondary to congenital heart disease (CHD) undergoing Fontan revisions.

To assess the clinical outcomes of patients with liver disease secondary to acquired cardiomyopathy or valvular disease that will undergo extensive heart surgery or heart transplantation.

Secondary Aim To assess whether HepQuant testing predicts clinical outcome in patients with Liver Disease and CHD when used in conjunction with other diagnostic tests, such as MELD, Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP), liver stiffness measurement (US with ARFI), and Fibrotest (Fibrosure).

Study population Male and female Subjects (age 18 to 70 years) with liver disease secondary to congenital heart disease or cardiomyopathy.

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Conditions studied

  • Liver Disease
  • Cardiovascular Disease

Keywords

  • Liver disease
  • cardiomyopathy
  • congenital heart disease
03

In context

Liver Diseases

2,081 studies on the registry are indexed under Liver Diseases; 390 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 14 is below the median of 50 across 1,323 interventional studies indexed under Liver Diseases.

Browse Liver Diseases studies →

Lead sponsor

Northwestern University is the lead sponsor of 1,396 studies on the registry; 199 are open to participants now.

Of its 102 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 73 (72%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

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Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 70 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

  1. Written informed consent obtained prior to any study-specific assessments.
  2. Liver disease secondary to congenital heart disease or cardiomyopathy.
  3. Male and female subjects (age 18 to 70 years of age).

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Male and female subjects \< 18 or > 70 years of age.
  2. Female subjects of child-bearing potential that are pregnant or breast feeding.
  3. Subjects on both beta blockers and ACE inhibitors.
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Study design

Phase
Early Phase 1
Primary purpose
Diagnostic
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
14 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Other
    Hep quant cholate testing

    diagnostic measure of liver function

    Drug: Cholate testing

Interventions

  • DrugCholate testing

    The patient receives simultaneously an oral dose of d4-cholate and an IV dose of 13C-cholate, which are stable isotopes; there is no radioactivity or radiation exposure.

    Also known as: 13C-cholate, d4-cholate

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What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Liver Function

    Liver function as measured by HepQuant testing which include Systemic Hepatic Filtration Rate (HFR), Portal HFR, SHUNT.

    Time frame: 6 months

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Study locations

No study locations are listed for this record.

08

References and documents

Publications

  • Everson GT, Shiffman ML, Morgan TR, Hoefs JC, Sterling RK, Wagner DA, Kulig CC, Curto TM, Wright EC; Halt-C Trial Group. The spectrum of hepatic functional impairment in compensated chronic hepatitis C: results from the Hepatitis C Anti-viral Long-term Treatment against Cirrhosis Trial. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2008 May;27(9):798-809. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2036.2008.03639.x. Epub 2008 Feb 7. PubMed 18266997 ↗
  • Everson GT, Martucci MA, Shiffman ML, Sterling RK, Morgan TR, Hoefs JC; HALT-C trial group. Portal-systemic shunting in patients with fibrosis or cirrhosis due to chronic hepatitis C: the minimal model for measuring cholate clearances and shunt. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2007 Aug 1;26(3):401-10. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2036.2007.03389.x. PubMed 17635375 ↗

Study documents

  • Informed consent form · Jun 5, 2017

Documents are hosted by the registry — open the source record to download them.

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

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Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Aug 22, 2018, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT02506335
Lead sponsor
Northwestern University
Collaborators
University of Colorado, Denver
Responsible party
Daniel Ganger (Principal Investigator, Northwestern University) — Principal investigator
First posted
Jul 23, 2015
Start date
Sep 1, 2015
Primary completion
May 1, 2018
Completion
May 1, 2018
Last update
Aug 22, 2018

Study contacts

Daniel Ganger, MD
principal investigator · Northwestern University

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Aug 2018. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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