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End Stage Liver DIseaseNCT05477277

Adverse Outcomes and Mortality in Liver Transplant

A study testing MAsS in people with End Stage Liver DIsease and Sarcopenia, run by Mayo Clinic at 1 site in United States.

Recruiting

Looking for participants now. Contact the study team or a site below to ask about taking part.

Sites and contacts
Official record
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Trial summary

Prospective natural history pilot study to explore the link between muscle composition using an MRI-based Muscle Assessment Score (MAsS) and adverse outcomes in liver transplant candidates. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 18 years and older
What is being tested?
MAsS
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
100 participants
Where
1 siteUnited States
Study dates
2 Nov 2022to 31 Dec 2027
Phase
Interventional
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 18 years and older
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • All patients with end-stage liver disease undergoing evaluation for liver transplantation
  • Patient clinically indicated for MRI during transplant candidacy evaluation
  • Adult

Who cannot join

  • 1. Contra indication to MRI

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country. Contact the study team or a site near you to ask about taking part.

United States1 site, 1 recruiting
  • Mayo Clinic Arizona

    Phoenix, Arizona, 85259

    Elizabeth Carey, MD, 480-342-1094

    Recruiting

Other trials in United States

About this study

Prospective natural history pilot study to explore the link between muscle composition using an MRI-based Muscle Assessment Score (MAsS) and adverse outcomes in liver transplant candidates.

Read the detailed description

Sarcopenia, characterized by the progressive loss of muscle volume and function, is a common and major complication in end-stage liver disease which significantly contributes to adverse outcomes and mortality as well as hampers successful outcomes for treatments such as liver transplant (LT). High resolution image-based techniques have been instrumental in furthering our understanding of body composition in sarcopenia specifically and human health in general. While several methods exist to evaluate body composition, imaging techniques, such as computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enable capitalization of images taken as part of standard practice as well as append already clinical examinations with brief sequences tailored for mapping muscle and body composition. Opportunistic application of this imaging-based body composition assessment to patients in a liver transplant context has revealed a high prevalence of sarcopenia (low muscle volume relative to age and sex) and pathological muscle fat infiltration (myosteatosis). Furthermore, a recent long-term (6-years post-LT) MRI-based retrospective study showed associations of myosteatosis to increased graft loss and mortality after transplant.

The combination of MRI-based thigh muscle volume and fat infiltration has been suggested as a more complete description of muscle composition with a stronger link to hospitalization, poor functional activities of daily life, and metabolic co-morbidities in general population and subjects presenting with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. A recently submit paper explored the predictive power of this combination based on 40 000 participants in the UK biobank and found that the presence of adverse muscle composition, that is the combination of lower-than-expected muscle volume and high muscle fat infiltration, showed to be a strong and independent predictor of all-cause mortality comparable to that of previous cancer diagnosis and smoking. The same MRI-sequence and body composition assessment has successfully been implemented in small pilot studies before and after LT, both within weeks and years after LT, and presented at recent scientific conferences.

There is a lack of knowledge in how to fully identity patients indicted for liver transplant that are of very high risk for adverse outcomes and mortality in standardized fashion. The aim is to use an MRI-based Muscle Assessment Score (MAsS), which includes both muscle volume and fat infiltration, at the transplant candidacy evaluation and other follow-up MRI examinations as clinically indicated, as an objective, standardized, and quantitative measure of muscle health and explore the link between muscle composition and adverse outcomes and mortality. In addition, there are growing numbers of high-risk donor livers, such as presenting with steatosis or exposed to prolonged ischemia time. A co-primary aim is to gather information on the association between transplant recipient muscle composition and donor liver characteristics to one-year post-LT adverse outcomes and mortality.

Being tested
MAsS
Medical subject headings
End Stage Liver Disease, Sarcopenia, Fibrosis

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • MAsSDiagnostic test

    Add MAsS to standard of care MRI scan

Study groups in NCT05477277
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Define MAsS cut-point at transplant evaluation to identify those with high risk for adverse outcomesExperimentalNot described
Receives: Diagnostic Test: MAsS

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Muscle assessment score (MAsS)

    The MAsS is a composite score of muscle fat index (% of muscle fat normalized to sex, weight in kg and height in meters) and muscle volume index (muscle volume in liters normalized to patient sex, height in meters and weight in kg)

    Measured: 1 year

  2. Adverse outcomes

    Number of pre- and post-transplant inpatient days

    Measured: 1 year

  3. Adverse outcomes

    Number of pre- and post-transplant ICU days

    Measured: 1 year

  4. Adverse outcomes

    Number of days alive outside of the hospital in the first year after liver transplant

    Measured: 1 year

  5. Adverse outcomes

    Mortality within the first year after liver transplant

    Measured: 1 year

  6. MAsS changes while waiting for liver transplant

    In patients who remain on the waitlist, serial MAsS measurements (see Outcome 1) will be taken and changes over time will be assessed

    Measured: 1 year

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted28 Jul 2022
  2. Study start2 Nov 2022
  3. Primary completion31 Dec 2026 (estimated)
  4. Study completion31 Dec 2027 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase N/A
Primary purpose
Diagnosis
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrolment
100 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT05477277
Sponsor's protocol ID
21-007442
Status last verified
Aug 2026
First submitted
12 Jul 2022
Last updated
5 Aug 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
Individual data sharing
No

Publications

  • Borga M, Thomas EL, Romu T, Rosander J, Fitzpatrick J, Dahlqvist Leinhard O, Bell JD. Validation of a fast method for quantification of intra-abdominal and subcutaneous adipose tissue for large-scale human studies. NMR Biomed. 2015 Dec;28(12):1747-53. doi: 10.1002/nbm.3432. Epub 2015 Nov 2.

    PubMed 26768490
  • Borga M, West J, Bell JD, Harvey NC, Romu T, Heymsfield SB, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. Advanced body composition assessment: from body mass index to body composition profiling. J Investig Med. 2018 Jun;66(5):1-9. doi: 10.1136/jim-2018-000722. Epub 2018 Mar 25.

    PubMed 29581385
  • Carey EJ, Lai JC, Sonnenday C, Tapper EB, Tandon P, Duarte-Rojo A, Dunn MA, Tsien C, Kallwitz ER, Ng V, Dasarathy S, Kappus M, Bashir MR, Montano-Loza AJ. A North American Expert Opinion Statement on Sarcopenia in Liver Transplantation. Hepatology. 2019 Nov;70(5):1816-1829. doi: 10.1002/hep.30828. Epub 2019 Aug 19.

    PubMed 31220351
  • Feng S, Goodrich NP, Bragg-Gresham JL, Dykstra DM, Punch JD, DebRoy MA, Greenstein SM, Merion RM. Characteristics associated with liver graft failure: the concept of a donor risk index. Am J Transplant. 2006 Apr;6(4):783-90. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-6143.2006.01242.x.

    PubMed 16539636
  • Flores A, Asrani SK. The donor risk index: A decade of experience. Liver Transpl. 2017 Sep;23(9):1216-1225. doi: 10.1002/lt.24799.

    PubMed 28590542
  • Karlsson A, Rosander J, Romu T, Tallberg J, Gronqvist A, Borga M, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. Automatic and quantitative assessment of regional muscle volume by multi-atlas segmentation using whole-body water-fat MRI. J Magn Reson Imaging. 2015 Jun;41(6):1558-69. doi: 10.1002/jmri.24726. Epub 2014 Aug 11.

    PubMed 25111561
  • Linge J, Borga M, West J, Tuthill T, Miller MR, Dumitriu A, Thomas EL, Romu T, Tunon P, Bell JD, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. Body Composition Profiling in the UK Biobank Imaging Study. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2018 Nov;26(11):1785-1795. doi: 10.1002/oby.22210. Epub 2018 May 22.

    PubMed 29785727
  • Linge J, Heymsfield SB, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. On the Definition of Sarcopenia in the Presence of Aging and Obesity-Initial Results from UK Biobank. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2020 Jun 18;75(7):1309-1316. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glz229.

    PubMed 31642894
  • Linge J, Ekstedt M, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. Adverse muscle composition is linked to poor functional performance and metabolic comorbidities in NAFLD. JHEP Rep. 2020 Oct 28;3(1):100197. doi: 10.1016/j.jhepr.2020.100197. eCollection 2021 Feb.

    PubMed 33598647
  • Linge J, Petersson M, Forsgren MF, Sanyal AJ, Dahlqvist Leinhard O. Adverse muscle composition predicts all-cause mortality in the UK Biobank imaging study. J Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle. 2021 Dec;12(6):1513-1526. doi: 10.1002/jcsm.12834. Epub 2021 Oct 29.

    PubMed 34713982
  • Montano-Loza AJ, Angulo P, Meza-Junco J, Prado CM, Sawyer MB, Beaumont C, Esfandiari N, Ma M, Baracos VE. Sarcopenic obesity and myosteatosis are associated with higher mortality in patients with cirrhosis. J Cachexia Sarcopenia Muscle. 2016 May;7(2):126-35. doi: 10.1002/jcsm.12039. Epub 2015 Jun 9.

    PubMed 27493866
  • Shenvi SD, Taber DJ, Hardie AD, Botstein JO, McGillicuddy JW. Assessment of magnetic resonance imaging derived fat fraction as a sensitive and reliable predictor of myosteatosis in liver transplant recipients. HPB (Oxford). 2020 Jan;22(1):102-108. doi: 10.1016/j.hpb.2019.06.006. Epub 2019 Aug 9.

    PubMed 31405777
  • West J, Dahlqvist Leinhard O, Romu T, Collins R, Garratt S, Bell JD, Borga M, Thomas L. Feasibility of MR-Based Body Composition Analysis in Large Scale Population Studies. PLoS One. 2016 Sep 23;11(9):e0163332. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0163332. eCollection 2016.

    PubMed 27662190
  • West J, Romu T, Thorell S, Lindblom H, Berin E, Holm AS, Astrand LL, Karlsson A, Borga M, Hammar M, Leinhard OD. Precision of MRI-based body composition measurements of postmenopausal women. PLoS One. 2018 Feb 7;13(2):e0192495. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192495. eCollection 2018.

    PubMed 29415060

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A study testing MAsS in people with End Stage Liver DIsease and Sarcopenia, run by Mayo Clinic at 1 site in United States.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 3 inclusion and 1 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: looking for participants now, as of the sponsor's last update on 5 Aug 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

Contact Latasha Bunkley (480.342.5756, bunkley.latasha@mayo.edu), or a site near the patient. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Muscle assessment score (MAsS) (time frame: 1 year). The study lists 6 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT05477277, which also lists 14 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 5 Aug 2026.

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