Metabolomic Profiling for Deep Venous Thrombosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Targeted Metabolomic Profiling in Deep Venous Thrombosis: Biomarker discovery for clinical application
IRAS ID
322192
Contact name
Kirtan Patel
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 2 months, 30 days
Research summary
Deep Venous Thrombosis (DVT) is a condition where clots forms in a deep vein. They usually affect the legs, causing pain, swelling and redness. DVT causes damage to veins causing long term swelling, pain, and sores. This is post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS). PTS can stop people working and living their lives.
DVT can break into smaller pieces and travel to the lungs. This is called a Pulmonary Embolism (PE), which is life threatening. In the UK, DVT and PE cause more than 25000 deaths a year.
Finding and treating DVT early can stop PE and PTS from happening.
Blood tests can help to find if somebody has a DVT. D-dimer is the blood test used for DVT. Patients then have an ultrasound scan of their veins. D-dimer can also be positive in other diseases including infection, cancer, and trauma. This means it is unreliable in diagnosing DVT. But it is the best thing we have.
Treatments for DVT include clot busting drugs and blood thinners. Use of clot busting drugs can prevent PTS. They are most effective when used on a DVT that is younger than 2 weeks. It is hard to tell the age of a DVT. Some DVT form slowly without symptoms. So, how long a patient has symptoms is not a reliable way to tell how long a DVT has been present.
Metabolomic profiling is a technology that detects very small chemicals in a sample. By using this technology on blood samples, we aim to identify a chemical fingerprint of DVT. With this fingerprint we aim to find a marker better than D-dimer. These markers will help us calculate clot age. Finally, the chemicals seen will help us understand how DVT form better.
REC name
London - Harrow Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/1170
Date of REC Opinion
1 Nov 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion