NCT00857181

Cytokines and the Risk of Infection in Liver Cirrhosis

A Single-center, Open Study to Investigate Cytokine Levels in Patients With Hepatic Cirrhosis Before the Development of Significant Infection

• Status: Terminated
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 150 (actual)
• Sponsor: Medical University of Graz · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The aim of this study is to test whether the oscillation of cytokine concentrations in serum is able to predict the development of infection in patients with liver cirrhosis.

Detailed description

Patients with liver cirrhosis frequently develop bacterial, viral or fungal infections which are the main trigger for decompensation of cirrhosis and development of complications and thereby infection hugely impacts morbidity and mortality in these patients. However, there is no clinical test available that allows rapid, on-site decision making if a patient is likely to develop an infection. The purpose of this study is to measure cytokines interleukin (IL) 6, IL8, IL10 and TNFalpha in patients with liver cirrhosis over a long follow-up period and test whether these inflammatory markers are able to predict the occurrence of infection before it becomes clinically significant. For this purpose, one hundred fifty consecutive patients with diagnosis of liver cirrhosis will be followed bi-monthly for 18 months. Blood samples will be collected for the cytokine measurements and infection cases will be reported at each study visit.

Conditions

• Liver Cirrhosis

Timeline

• Start date: 2009-03-01
• Primary completion: 2010-03-01
• Completion: 2010-03-01
• First posted: 2009-03-06
• Last updated: 2012-03-05

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Austria