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Growth Hormone in Decompensated Liver Cirrhosis

NCT05253287 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: PHASE2/PHASE3 · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 96

Last updated 2025-12-16

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Globally, cirrhosis and liver cancer carries a huge burden and accounts for about 3.5% (2 million) of all deaths every year. Once decompensated, i.e. development of ascites, variceal bleed, encephalopathy, and jaundice, the life expectancy is markedly reduced to a median of two years. The definitive treatment in this stage, i.e., liver transplantation is limited by cost, lack of donors, and life-long immunosuppression.

In addition to complications due to portal hypertension and hepatic insufficiency, decompensated cirrhosis is associated with malnutrition, sarcopenia, immune dysfunction, and impaired regeneration. Patients with cirrhosis are growth hormone (GH) resistant, with reduced insulin-like growth factor, which are linked to malnutrition and poor liver regeneration in cirrhosis. Diverse preclinical and clinical investigations in vitro and in vivo, have shown a benefit of GH in GH deficient, elderly and HIV positive patients. GH therapy in cirrhosis has been shown to improve nitrogen economy and to improve the GH resistance in a small pilot study by Donaghy et al. Also, GH therapy of short duration has shown to increase IGF1 levels, IGFBP-3 levels in patients of cirrhosis. GH therapy has also been shown to improve liver regeneration and protein synthesis after hepatectomy in patients of HCC with cirrhosis. However, there is a scarcity of data on clinical impact of long term administration of GH therapy in patients of cirrhosis. Hence, we undertook the present study to study the effect of growth hormone on clinical outcomes, malnutrition, immune cells and liver regeneration in patients with cirrhosis.

Conditions

Interventions

DRUG

Growth Hormone

GH therapy will be initiated at a low dose of 2U/day and titrated slowly based on IGF-1 levels) subcutaneously for 1 year.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Virendra Singh, DM · Professor and Head, Department of Hepatology

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
80 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2022-02-01
Primary Completion
2024-12-31
Completion
2024-12-31

Countries

  • India

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Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT05253287 on ClinicalTrials.gov