Tissue Microdialysis Monitoring of Liver Grafts

Launched by UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTRE LJUBLJANA · Mar 16, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This study in Ljubljana, Slovenia is observing how a newly transplanted liver works in the first few days after surgery. Researchers will use a small catheter-based method called tissue microdialysis to sample and measure certain chemicals in the liver graft (like glucose, pyruvate, lactate, glycerol, and urea). They will compare these tissue measurements with standard liver tests (such as ALT, AST, bilirubin, INR, plasma lactate and pyruvate, and how well the liver clears a dye called indocyanine green) to see if tissue microdialysis provides useful, reliable information about how well the graft is functioning.

About 25 adult liver transplant candidates, aged 18 to 65, on the Slovenian waiting list at University Medical Centre Ljubljana are expected to participate. To be eligible, you must be scheduled for an orthotopic liver transplant and be willing to consent to the research sampling; there are specific safety-related exclusions (for example, conditions that could prevent catheter insertion or lead to early graft loss). If eligible, a microdialysis catheter would be placed into the new liver during the transplant, and tissue samples would be collected for up to 5 days after surgery as part of the study. The study is observational and focused on research data; results may be shared in anonymized form after publication.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion criteria:
• • Adult patients aged between 18 and 65 years.
• • Liver transplant candidates on the Slovenian liver transplant waiting list, matched with an available liver graft through the Eurotransplant system, and scheduled for the surgical procedure.
• • Signed informed consent to participate in the microdialysis sampling research project, including consent to share the obtained samples with other research studies
• Exclusion criteria:
• • Patients under 18 or over 65 years of age.
• • Refusal to participate in the study.
• • Verbal withdrawal of consent at any point during the study, even if informed consent has been previously signed.
• • Surgical contraindications preventing the insertion of a microdialysis catheter into the liver graft during the procedure.
• • Surgical revision within 48 hours post-transplantation resulting in liver graft loss and removal.
• • History of allergic reactions to radiographic contrast media.
• • Death during the liver transplant procedure.