NCT06102980

Endoscopic Ultrasound Shear Wave for Liver Fibrosis in MASLD Patients: The RUMIPAMBA Trial

Estimation of Liver Fibrosis in Patients With MASLD Screening Criteria Through Endoscopic Ultrasound-guided Shear Wave vs Transabdominal Ultrasound and Transient Elastography: The RUMIPAMBA Diagnostic Trial

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 30 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Instituto Ecuatoriano de Enfermedades Digestivas · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 79 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Currently, there is no description of the contribution of the endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided shear wave elastography (SWE) when describing liver fibrosis in patients with screening criteria of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), with absent-to-mild liver fibrosis. Similar research has been published but using vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE), recommended mainly due to its lower cost and less invasiveness. However, VCTE is limited to the anatomical proportions of the patient's body, and cannot assess the right hepatic lobe with less reliability, contrary to the EUS-SWE.

Detailed description

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), formerly non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), is an umbrella term which involves simple liver steatosis, metabolic-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) and MASH-related liver cirrhosis. Liver steatosis relies on imaging or biomarkers, but liver biopsy remains the gold standard for its diagnosis and grading. It comprehends intracellular accumulation of triacylglycerol (TAG) as microvascular or macrovascular lipid droplets in at least 5% of hepatocytes. Liver biopsy is invasive, requires a high-quality biopsy sample, can mislead a diagnosis due to sampling bias, depends on pathologist interpretation variability and implies adverse events related to the punction. There are non-invasive resources useful for the screening and surveillance of liver steatosis and fibrosis. Apart from serum biomarkers, non-invasive technologies designed for this purpose use transabdominal ultrasound (US)-based elastography, namely: US strain, acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI), point shear wave elastography (pSWE), two-dimension shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) and vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE). Although VCTE presents anatomical limitations when used in overweight patients or assessing the right hepatic lobe, it is largely accepted by international guidelines for assessing liver steatosis and fibrosis. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided shear wave elastography (SWE) is independent of the anatomical proportions of the patients, and it permits a more reliable right hepatic lobe evaluation. However, it is an invasive and high-cost procedure. VCTE, US-ARFI and EUS-SWE determine liver fibrosis quantitatively in terms of liver stiffness through kiloPascals. There are four important gaps in the literature: First, the diagnostic accuracy of VCTE for liver steatosis has been profoundly analysed in NAFLD, but in a wide spectrum of liver fibrosis patients, from absent to cirrhosis. These limits finding extrapolations for screening and surveillance. Second, comparisons between VCTE, US-ARFI and EUS-SWE have concentrated on liver fibrosis or cirrhosis, but they have not been compared head-to-head in the context of absent-to-mild liver fibrosis vs controls. Third, there is no determined diagnostic accuracy for EUS-SWE for an early liver fibrosis estimation in MASLD patients. It is useful considering EUS is becoming a more popular procedure. Finally, and to be consequent with the third point, the identification and grading of liver steatosis and fibrosis still need to be described in the nowadays called MASLD patients. The present study aims to determine the difference in the estimation of liver fibrosis among VCTE, US-ARFI and EUS-SWE in patients with clinical criteria of MASLD screening but absent-to-mild liver fibrosis, according to non-invasive methods. This study has been called by the authors through the acronym RUMIPAMBA, which means "Role of endoscopic Ultrasound-guided shear wave for MASLD-related liver steatosis and fibrosis Identification in Patients with Absent to Mild Basal fibrosis, based on non-invasive Analytical laboratory tests". In the general culture, Rumipamba is the name of an archaeological prehispanic and preincaic park from Quito, the capital city of Ecuador.

Conditions

• Liver Steatosis
• Fibrosis, Liver

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Transparietal ultrasound (US)-based shear wave elastography (SWE) attenuation measurement	The operator will be blinded to any clinical record. Before US-SWE, the patient must be fasted for a minimum of 4 hours and must remain alcohol-free for 7 days. Using an Aloka Arietta 850 (Olympus America, PA, USA), each patient must be supine. Upon breath-hold at the end of expiration, ten measurements will be obtained with the probe placed in the area of the right hepatic lobe through an intercostal space.
DEVICE	Transparietal ultrasound (US)-based shear wave elastography (SWE) stiffness measurement	The operator will be blinded to any clinical record. Before US-SWE, the patient must be fasted for a minimum of 4 hours and must remain alcohol-free for 7 days. Using an Aloka Arietta 850 (Olympus America, PA, USA), each patient must be supine. Upon breath-hold at the end of expiration, ten measurements will be obtained with the probe placed in the area of the right hepatic lobe through an intercostal space.
DEVICE	Vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) attenuation measurement	The operator will be blinded to any clinical record. Before VCTE, the patient must be fasted for a minimum of 4 hours and must remain alcohol-free for 7 days. Using the FibroScan® Compact 530 (Echosens, Paris, France), each patient must be supine with the right arm in abduction and the ipsilateral hand resting under the head. Upon breath-hold at the end of expiration, ten measurements will be obtained with the M-probe placed in the area of the right hepatic lobe through an intercostal space. Transition to an extra large probe will be based on a VCTE automatic probe selection tool prompt.
DEVICE	Vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) stiffness measurement	The operator will be blinded to any clinical record. Before VCTE, the patient must be fasted for a minimum of 4 hours and must remain alcohol-free for 7 days. Using the FibroScan® Compact 530 (Echosens, Paris, France), each patient must be supine with the right arm in abduction and the ipsilateral hand resting under the head. Upon breath-hold at the end of expiration, ten measurements will be obtained with the M-probe placed in the area of the right hepatic lobe through an intercostal space. Transition to an extra large probe will be based on a VCTE automatic probe selection tool prompt.
DEVICE	Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided shear wave elastography (SWE) stiffness measurement	EUS-SWE will be performed by an experienced endoscopist, blinded to clinical records. The expert will use the ArrietaTM 850 EUS console (Fujifilm, Tokyo, Japan) using a linear ultrasound video gastroscope EUS-J10 (Pentax Medical, Hoya Corp, Japan). Both lobes will be evaluated. The transducer will be positioned in the gastric window to visualize right liver segment number five and left liver segment two or three. The elastogram region of interest (ROI) will be placed within the liver tissue at a distance ≥10 mm beneath the hepatic capsule in an area free of vessels and artefacts. A 10-mm circular ROI will be placed within the elastogram at a depth of 4-5 cm from the skin, and a minimum of ten successful kilopascal measurements will be obtained. In the first stage of this research, the EUS-SWE measurement will be limited to the estimation of liver fibrosis only. Currently, available EUS-SWE equipment does not allow the estimation of the attenuation.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-11-01
• Primary completion: 2024-12-01
• Completion: 2025-04-01
• First posted: 2023-10-26
• Last updated: 2024-09-24

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Ecuador