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RecruitingNCT06111859Updated Nov 1, 2023

Effectiveness of Ultrasound in Liver Stiffness and Fat Quantification

An interventional study of Ultrasound based Elastography and fat quantification in Liver Disease Chronic, Fibrosis, Liver and Liver Steatoses, sponsored by King's College Hospital NHS Trust. Recruiting at 1 site in United Kingdom. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 99 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2023-11-01.

Sponsored by King's College Hospital NHS Trust · Not applicable, Interventional, and Diagnostic

From the registry’s dates

  • Primary completion was expected by Jan 2025, 1 year 9 months ago, but the record still lists the study as recruiting.
  • Registered 8 months after the study started (first participant enrolled Jan 2023, registered Sep 2023).
  • Started Jan 2023; still recruiting 3 years 9 months later.
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
180
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years to 99 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

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).

Read the 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.

02

Conditions studied

  • Liver Disease Chronic
  • Fibrosis, Liver
  • Liver Steatoses
  • Liver Fat
  • NAFLD
  • NASH With Fibrosis
  • Hepatitis

Keywords

  • Elastography
  • Fat Quantification Liver
  • Chronic liver disease
  • NAFLD
  • MAFLD
  • Hepatitis
  • Cirrhosis
03

In context

Hepatitis

3,380 studies on the registry are indexed under Hepatitis; 202 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 180 is above the median of 100 across 2,388 interventional studies indexed under Hepatitis.

Browse Hepatitis studies →

Lead sponsor

King's College Hospital NHS Trust is the lead sponsor of 164 studies on the registry; 54 are open to participants now.

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

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 99 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

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

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
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Diagnostic
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
180 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Liver Biopsy Cohort

    Diagnostic Test: Ultrasound based Elastography and fat quantification

Interventions

  • Diagnostic testUltrasound based Elastography and fat quantification

    Correlation of ultrasound-based elastography and fat quantification on liver biopsy

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Diagnostic accuracy of liver elastography compared to histological staging

    Comparison of ultrasound elastography measures and biopsy based fibrosis scores

    Time frame: 3 years

  2. Diagnostic accuracy of liver fat quantification compared to histological assessment

    Comparison of ultrasound fat quantification measures and biopsy based fat percentages

    Time frame: 3 years

07

Study locations

1 of 1 sites recruiting
  • Nuran Seneviratne
    London, SE13 5FX, United Kingdom
    Recruiting
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Nov 1, 2023, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT06111859
Lead sponsor
King's College Hospital NHS Trust
Collaborators
Samsung Medison
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Nov 1, 2023
Start date
Jan 2, 2023
Primary completion
Jan 2, 2025 (estimated)
Completion
Jul 2, 2025 (estimated)
Last update
Nov 1, 2023

Study contacts

Cheng Fang
Contact
chengfang@nhs.net
07809747718
Paul Sidhu
Contact
paulsidhu@nhs.net

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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