Quantitative magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography metrics are associated with disease severity and outcomes in people with primary sclerosing cholangitis
- November 01, 2022
Welcome back!
Welcome back to Perspectum’s Physician Education Hub, a forum for sharing important developments in the field of hepatology, focused on noninvasive diagnostics and beyond. Let me introduce myself — I am Prashant Pandya, D.O., FAASLD — and I recently joined Perspectum’s Medical Affairs team as a Medical Director. I bring extensive clinical experience in the care of patients with liver disease, as well as participation in a broad range of activities in clinical research and development, garnered through academic faculty positions for over 25 years. In my most recent academic roles, I served as Professor of Medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine and Director of Hepatology at the Kansas City VA Medical Center. In my new role I am delighted to share innovations arising from scientists from around the globe.
Highlighted Article
Today I would like to highlight a recent publication in JHEP Reports from Dr. Nora Cazzagon, M.D., Ph.D., Department of Surgery, Oncology, and Gastroenterology at University of Padova. Dr. Cazzagon and colleagues aimed to tackle the limitations of the prognostic assessment of patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). In this multicenter cohort, the authors demonstrated that quantitative MRCP metrics (derived from the software tool MRCP+), not only correlated with biochemical, elastographic, and radiological prognostic scores but more importantly were predictive of clinical outcomes for patients with PSC. Based on similar findings from single center studies, MRCP+ outputs are included among the armamentarium of prognostic tools in the most recent EASL clinical guidelines for PSC. The evidence from Cazzagon et al., adds further credence to quantitative MRI techniques to improve prognostication for patients with chronic liver disease; something we have already seen with the corrected T1 (cT1) score predicting liver-related morbidity and mortality in patients with chronic liver disease in a publication by Jayaswal et al. We are also excited to present evidence at the AASLD Liver Meeting 2022 revealing that the cT1 score independently predicted cardiovascular outcome.