In this event organised by ELPA with the title ‘The COMBAT-trial: A novel COMBinATorial therapy with albumin and enoxaparin in patients with decompensated cirrhosis at high risk of poor outcome,’ experts from DECISION explained the upcoming clinical trial to patient representatives. They discussed the recruitment process and what it means from an ethical perspective. Great interest was shown in the question of how patient representatives and clinicians can work together to facilitate recruitment for this trial. The meeting took place on March 6, 2023.
DECISION strives to understand better the pathophysiology of decompensated cirrhosis leading to acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) at the systems level by taking advantage of existing large and clinically well-characterized patient cohorts. The goal is to significantly reduce mortality through combinatorial therapies tailored to individual patients’ specific needs. Part of this endeavour is to develop a reliable prognostic test to identify patients that are at risk for a poor outcome following standard therapy but who may benefit from a novel and personalised combinatorial therapy and a robust response test to predict the success of a novel combinatorial therapy as opposed to more aggressive solutions like a liver transplant.
The entire meeting can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS3-QKd9Nlg&t=6s