LiverMultiScan for clinical decision making in Autoimmune Hepatitis

这个项目旨在提高自身免疫性肝炎(AIH)患者的标准护理水平。AIH是一种原因不明的慢性肝脏炎症性疾病，如果不治疗，可能会导致肝功能衰竭和死亡。虽然有用类固醇和抑制免疫系统的药物进行有效治疗，但这些治疗并不完美，许多患者会复发和出现不良副作用(如体重增加、睡眠障碍、骨质疏松症、眼睛问题)。因此，在可能的情况下，努力减少剂量。因此，AIH患者需要终生治疗和监测。肝活检是评估肝脏健康状况的黄金标准，但风险高、不准确、昂贵且痛苦，因此不是治疗监测的首选方案。血液检测可以识别肝脏何时发炎，但对可能表明患者病情可能恶化的微小变化不够敏感。对AIH进行更好的治疗监测有可能减少复发或“复发”的负面后果，减少从未发现的长期炎症进展为肝硬变的机会，并更有效地告知治疗，潜在地减少副作用。它还有可能减少对侵入性、痛苦和高风险的活检的需求。透视诊断公司超越了牛津大学，将诊断肝脏疾病的磁共振技术商业化。其旗舰产品liverMultiScan是一种非侵入性程序，可以在简单的15分钟扫描中量化肝脏的健康状况。LMS已成功地在世界各地被用于研究非酒精性脂肪性肝病的临床试验。在这一项目中，展望公司将与英国国王学院医院NHS信托公司肝病科AIH领域的国际公认专家一道，致力于利用核磁共振来量化AIH患者的肝纤维化和炎症，旨在改善患者护理并降低医疗成本。该项目的主要目的是展示如何将liverMultiScan加入AIH患者的标准护理途径，从而实现更好的治疗和更准确的类固醇剂量，从而防止肝功能衰竭和相关的NHS成本。“

"This project aims to improve the standard care of patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis (AIH). AIH is a chronic inflammatory disease of the liver of unknown cause that, if untreated, can lead to liver failure, and death. Whislt there is an effective treatment with steriods and medicines that supress the immune system, these are not perfect, with many patients experiencing relapses and undesired side effects (such as weight gain, sleep disturbance, osteoporosis, eye problems). Efforts are therefore made to reduce doses where possible. As a result AIH patients require lifelong treatment and monitoring.Liver biopsy is the gold standard for evaluating the health of the liver but is risky, imprecise, expensive and painful, and therefore not a favoured option for treatment monitoring. Blood tests can identify when the liver is inflammed, but are not sensitive enough to small changes that might indicate a patients condition is likely to worsen. Better treatment monitoring in AIH has the potential to reduce the negative consequences of a relapse or 'flare', to reduce the chances of progression to cirrhosis from undetected long-term inflammation and to inform treatment more effectively, potentially reducing side effects. It also has the potential to reduce the need to invasive painful and risky biopsies.Perspectum Diagnostics span out of the University of Oxford to commercialise MRI technology for diagnosing liver disease. Its flagship product, LiverMultiScan, is a non-invasive procedure that can quantify the health of liver in a simple 15-minute scan. LMS has been successfully adopted worldwide for clinical trials investiagating non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In this project, Perspectum will join with the internationally-recognised experts in the field of AIH in the department of hepatology at Kings College Hospital NHS trust, to address the utility of MRI to quanitfy liver fibrosis and inflammation in AIH patients, aiming to improve patient care and reduce healthcare costs.The main aim of the project is to demonstrate how adding a LiverMultiScan into the standard care pathway for patients with AIH may allow better treatment and accurate dosing of steroids thus preventing liver failure and associated NHS costs."