NCT06557564

Diagnosis of Graft Pathology by TruGraf

Development of a Machine Learning Tool for Non-invasive Diagnosis of Liver Graft Pathology Using TruGraf

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 471 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University Health Network, Toronto · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of this observational study is to to identify different causes of liver diseases or damage in liver transplant patients and develop a machine learning algorithm as a non-invasive tool leveraging gene expression and patient clinical information to classify transplant liver diseases We will collect blood samples of the participants who had undergone or will undergo the liver biopsy as part of standard of care, and use this blood in TruGarf. TruGraf is a non-invasive test that measures differentially expressed genes in the blood of transplant recipients to rule out liver damage. Researcher will collect the biopsy result from the medical record and this will be compared with the TruGarf results.

Detailed description

Given the significant investment of healthcare resources into transplantation, it is critical to identify recipients with graft pathologies such as Acute Cellular Rejection (ACR), NASH, cholestasis, etc. at an earlier stage to implement the appropriate intervention, rather than initiating empiric treatment that could be unsafe. This project will develop a practical Machine learning-based tool based on the results of the TruGraf assay alongside clinical and laboratory data for non-invasive diagnosis of graft pathology. TruGraf is a non-invasive test that measures differentially expressed genes in the blood of transplant recipients to identify patients who are likely to be adequately immunosuppressed and, in doing so, rule out graft damage. TruGraf measures the difference in gene expression for a precise panel of specific genes that have been empirically determined to discriminate between allografts that are truly healthy (Non-ACR), and those in transplant patients that have acute rejection on biopsy (AR). Nevertheless, the exact etiology of graft damage may be difficult to discern for the transplant clinician. The clinical characteristics and history of the liver transplant recipient as well as liver enzyme patterns can provide a pre-test probability of one diagnosis being more likely than the other (Acute cellular rejection, NASH, biliary or viral disease). The proposed tool will leverage our expertise in Machine Learning tools applied to clinical and molecular data (TruGraf assay results) to enable effective clinical implementation of the TruGraf assay.

Conditions

• Acute Graft Rejection

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
GENETIC	TruGraf liver gene expression	Blood from the patients undergoing graft liver biopsy will be collected on the day of the liver biopsy, preferable prior to tissue collection or within 48 hours following the biopsy. Two specialized PaxGene tubes containing 2.5mL of blood each will be filled and will be sent to TGI laboratory in USA for processing, storage, and analysis using TGI's proprietary bioinformatics TruGraf will provide UHN with a Liver binary result: ACR or non-ACR. The results data will be batched and sent to UHN at agreed upon timepoints.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-07-20
• Primary completion: 2027-07-20
• Completion: 2027-12-30
• First posted: 2024-08-16
• Last updated: 2024-08-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Canada