PHYSICIAN INFO
Patient Management
Areas where HepQuant-SHUNT™ and HepQuant-FLOW™ could potentially aid in patient management include:
- Tracking the progression of liver disease, especially prior to other obvious signs of decompensation
- Identifying the patients at-risk for varices, especially medium to large varices
- Tracking the improvement in liver function, that occurs with treatments or changes in liver disease
- Identifying the patients at risk for decompensation, death, or HCC; early referral for liver transplantation
- Endpoint for clinical trials
- In study design to stratify patients for treatments based upon hepatic function
Differentiation
Presently, physicians rely on patient history, medical examination, standard blood tests, liver biopsy, and radiologic studies to define disease severity, assess progression, and evaluate the impact of treatments and interventions. These tests are limited in predictive value, may be affected by non-hepatic factors, and in some cases can be painful and carry risk. In contrast, the tests that HepQuant is developing are aimed at quantifying changes in the portal circulation
—changes which ultimately lead to all of the later major clinical manifestations of liver disease.
Earlier Identification of Disease
HepQuant-STATTM is primarily designed to be a rapid and convenient screening assay to identify patients with diminished liver function due to undiagnosed chronic liver disease from any etiology including alcohol, fatty liver, viral infection, or other causes. Generally, chronic liver disease is silent and patients lack signs, symptoms or abnormalities in standard laboratory tests. Patients may appear healthy or stable but actually have significant hepatic impairment, even cirrhosis. Detecting significant hepatic impairment at earlier stages of disease could trigger effective treatment and reduce the risk for future life-threatening complications and costs. HepQuant-STATTM is more sensitive and much more reproducible than standard liver blood tests, so-called liver “function” tests, such as ALT or AST.
Closing the Gap
HepQuant's tests are specifically being developed to fill the need for accurate, specific, safe, and non-invasive testing to assess the severity of chronic liver disease.
Want more information?
Have Questions?
Contact HepQuant Now
