Integrated diagnostics for early diagnosis of liver disease ID-LIVER
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Integrated Diagnostics for Early Diagnosis of Liver Disease
IRAS ID
273633
Contact name
Varinder Athwal
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Liver disease is a silent epidemic. Four in ten people in the North West are likely to have evidence of liver disease. A small but significant proportion of these patients develop scarring, leading to end-stage cirrhosis. All too frequently this is detected in very advanced stages, where treatment cannot reverse the condition. It is one of the UK’s largest health challenges. At present we use a wide range of single tests that individually struggle to identify disease and high-risk patients early. \n\nWe are implementing a new pathway for the assessment of patients with abnormal liver blood tests or high risk for liver disease (please see pathway in protocol). This novel pathway will allow assessment of patients in Community Liver Assessment Clinics (CLAC) with the expectation that only 20% of patients assessed would need to be seen in secondary care for further assessment. We expect, to be assessing, 750 patients per year in this pathway. This pathway will bring together a large group of patients with liver disease. As part of the clinical assessment we will be undertaking investigations to diagnose disease and assess extent. This will generate significant information, that we currently use in isolation to make the aforementioned assessments. In this study, we would like to bring together all this data into a curated database. To this end, we would offer all patients who attend the CLAC for clinical need to enrol into the study so we can cohort their data. We would generate a database to combine all data, alongside some other, non-invasive tests, done alongside routine clinical tests. \n\nOur project will address this lack of answers by teaming up with innovative companies to make software that joins together a wide range of different tests to make an algorithm to detect disease earlier.
REC name
North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 1
REC reference
20/NS/0055
Date of REC Opinion
4 May 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion