Hepatectomy risk assessment with functional magnetic resonance imaging (HEPARIM)

Background

Post hepatectomy liver failure (PHLF) remains a significant risk in patients undergoing curative liver resection for cancer, however currently available PHLF risk prediction investigations are not sufficiently accurate.

The Hepatectomy risk assessment with functional magnetic resonance imaging trial (HEPARIM) aims to establish if quantitative MRI biomarkers of liver function & perfusion can be used to more accurately predict PHLF risk and FLR function, measured against indocyanine green (ICG) liver function test.

Methods

HEPARIM is an observational cohort study recruiting patients undergoing liver resection of 2 segments or more, prior to surgery patients will have both Dynamic Gadoxetate-enhanced (DGE) liver MRI and ICG testing.

Day one post op ICG testing is repeated and R15 compared to the Gadoxetate Clearance (GC) of the future liver remnant (FLR-GC) as measure by preoperative DGE- MRI which is the primary outcome, and preoperative ICG R15 compared to GC of whole liver (WL-GC) as a secondary outcome.

Data will be collected from medical records, biochemistry, pathology and radiology reports and used in a multi-variate analysis to the value of functional MRI and derive multivariant prediction models for future validation.

Discussion

If successful, this test will potentially provide an efficient means to quantitatively assess FLR function and PHLF risk enabling surgeons to push boundaries of liver surgery further while maintaining safe practice and thereby offering chance of cure to patients who would previously been deemed inoperable. MRI has the added benefit of already being part of the routine diagnostic pathway and as such would have limited additional burden on patients time or cost to health care systems. (Hepatectomy Risk Assessment With Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov, n.d.)

Trial registration

ClinicalTrials.gov, ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04705194 - Registered 12th January 2021 – Retrospectively registered