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CompletedNCT03342703Updated Apr 22, 2021

Correlation of Ultrasound Based Measurements of Liver Stiffness and Steatosis With MRI

An observational study in Liver Steatoses and Liver Cirrhosis, sponsored by Stanford University. Completed at 2 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2021-04-22.

Sponsored by Stanford University · Observational

Study type
Observational
Model
Case-only
Time perspective
Prospective
Enrollment
35
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The investigators will assess the ability of ultrasound (US) to measure liver stiffness (cirrhosis) and liver fat content (steatosis).

Read the detailed description

Non-invasive monitoring of liver fibrosis using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help determine which patients will most benefit from interventional therapies to help reverse the condition. Similarly, quantitative assessment of liver fat content using MRI can assist physicians in identifying patients at risk for hepatic steatohepatitis.

Due to the widespread dissemination of US machines and their relative lower cost compared to other imaging modalities, e.g. MRI, the ability of US to assess these parameters widens diagnostic availability.

Patients who have undergone an MRI exam to assess liver stiffness (cirrhosis) and/or liver fat content (steatosis) will be asked to undergo an US exam to assess the same parameters. The cirrhosis and steatosis measurements obtained from both exams will be compared. If US-based measurements of liver stiffness and/or liver fat content are shown to be reproducible and accurate when compared to MRI values (will be used as the gold standard), US may become the first-line diagnostic test for these liver conditions.

02

Conditions studied

  • Liver Steatoses
  • Liver Cirrhosis
03

In context

Fatty Liver

1,462 studies on the registry are indexed under Fatty Liver; 289 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 35 is below the median of 140 across 402 observational studies indexed under Fatty Liver.

Browse Fatty Liver studies →

Lead sponsor

Stanford University is the lead sponsor of 2,161 studies on the registry; 428 are open to participants now.

Of its 268 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 207 (77%) have results posted.

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

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No
Sampling method
Non-probability sample

Study population

Subjects who have or are scheduled to undergo a routine clinical MRI at Stanford that included assessment of liver stiffness or liver fat content will be identified using the radiology schedule.

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. participants who have a clinical indication for a standard of care MRI exam that included assessment of the liver
  2. participant is at least 18 years of age

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Participants unable to take part in the decision making process on whether to consent to the trial
  2. Patients with previous chemoembolization or other focal liver therapies to the liver (* NOTE: for liver transplant patients, this criterion is only applicable to the transplanted liver)
05

Study design

Observational model
Case-only
Time perspective
Prospective
Enrollment
35 participants (actual)
Patient registry
No

Groups and cohorts

  • Patients with Liver Fibrosis Measurement

    Group1: Patients will undergo an Ultrasound to correlate fibrosis measurements obtained using standard-of-care MRI.

    Diagnostic Test: Ultrasound

  • Patients with Liver Steatosis Measurement

    Group 2: Patients will undergo an Ultrasound to correlate steatosis measurements obtained using standard-of-care MRI.

    Diagnostic Test: Ultrasound

Interventions

  • Diagnostic testUltrasound

    Patients will undergo a standard liver US protocol for approximately 15 minutes.

    Also known as: US elastography, US fat quantification

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Discriminatory value (AUC) of US in assessing liver stiffness

    Discriminatory value (the ability of the test to diagnose disease from healthy) will be calculated using nonparametric receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Sensitivity (i.e. true positive rate: the ability of a test to correctly identify patients with the disease being investigated) is plotted on the y axis and 1-specificity (i.e. false positive rate: the test incorrectly identifies patients who do not have the disease being investigated as having the disease) will be plotted on the x-axis. Cutoff points of US liver stiffness values will be chosen to create the graph of sensitivity versus 1-Specificity, i.e. the ROC curve, and the area under the curve (AUC) is used to determine how well US discriminates patients with liver stiffness from patients without liver stiffness. The closer the AUC gets to 1, the more discriminatory the test. An AUC=0.5 is a test that is right 50% of the time, and is no better than flipping a coin.

    Time frame: an estimated time of 30 minutes

  2. Discriminatory value (AUC) of US in assessing liver fat content

    Discriminatory value (the ability of the test to diagnose disease from healthy) will be calculated using nonparametric receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Sensitivity (i.e. true positive rate: the ability of a test to correctly identify patients with the disease being investigated) is plotted on the y axis and 1-specificity (i.e. false positive rate: the test incorrectly identifies patients who do not have the disease being investigated as having the disease) will be plotted on the x-axis. Cutoff points of US liver fat content values will be chosen to create the graph of sensitivity versus 1-specificity, i.e. the ROC curve, and the area under the curve (AUC) is used to determine how well US discriminates patients with liver fat content from patients without liver fat content. The closer the AUC gets to 1, the more discriminatory the test. An AUC=0.5 is a test that is right 50% of the time, and is no better than flipping a coin.

    Time frame: an estimated average of 30 minutes

Secondary outcomes

  1. US Elastography Stiffness

    MRI tissue stiffness is reported in shear modulus (S), while US uses Young's modulus (Y). Since Y = 2\*(1+m)\*S, where m is the Poisson's ratio for the material, and since that ratio is between 0.49 and 0.50 for tissue, the US measurements should be three times that of the MRI ones. In particular, treating the MRI measurements as the reference, theory predicts a linear relationship: Y = 0 + 3\*S which can be tested with a linear regression model. The most straightforward means is by calculating the expected Young's modulus values for US from the MR measurements, and regressing them on the observed US measurements. Both US and MRI values are given below.

    Time frame: an estimated average of 30 minutes

07

Study locations

2 sites
  • Stanford University Hospital
    Stanford, California 94305, United States
  • Stanford University
    Stanford, California 94305, United States
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Ran from Aug 2018 to primary completion in Dec 2019, 16 months.

Of 142 non-industry observational studies under Fatty Liver, half reached primary completion within 45 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 20 and three quarters within 122. This study's 16 months is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 152 studies reached it within 39 months; a quarter within 20 and three quarters within 120.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Oct 12, 2017
First posted
Nov 17, 2017
StartActual
Aug 1, 2018
Primary completionActual
Dec 31, 2019
CompletionActual
Dec 31, 2020
Last update
Apr 22, 2021
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Apr 22, 2021, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03342703
Responsible party
Aya Kamaya (Associate Professor of Medicine, Stanford University) — Principal investigator
First posted
Nov 17, 2017
Start date
Aug 1, 2018
Primary completion
Dec 31, 2019
Completion
Dec 31, 2020
Last update
Apr 22, 2021

Study contacts

Aya Kamaya, MD
principal investigator · Stanford University
Andreas Loening, MD
principal investigator · Stanford University

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is completed, as verified in Apr 2021. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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