Evaluation of Phlebotomy as a Treatment for Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

University of Western Ontario, Canada

Status: Completed

Conditions: Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Treatments: Procedure: Phlebotomy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT00641524

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Details and patient eligibility

About

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of phlebotomy (blood taking)as a treatment for patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Full description

In this study phlebotomy will be evaluated as a therapy for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a common and important cause of liver disease. Phlebotomy has been used for many years in the treatment of disorders of iron overload such as hemochromatosis, where it is well tolerated and improves symptoms and survival. There is some evidence that it is also effective in treating NAFLD. However, previous studies have not evaluated whether phlebotomy improves liver biopsy findings. We will measure the severity disease in NAFLD patients prior to phlebotomy therapy and again at the end of treatment. This will allow us to accurately determine the benefit of this therapy in these patients.

Enrollment: 45 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 75 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Patients 18y or older
• Diagnosis of Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Exclusion criteria

• Unable or unwilling to provide informed consent
• Alcohol consumption of >10g/day for women and >20g/day for men

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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45 participants in 1 patient group

treatment

Other group

Description:

Iron depletion via phlebotomy

Treatment:

Procedure: Phlebotomy