New treatment for liver disease could save lives of thousands

Jun 1 2009 by Helen Rae, The Journal

A NEW treatment in liver disease could save thousands of lives. Newcastle University experts have discovered a blood-pressure medicine which has been shown to reverse the effects of early-stage liver failure in some patients.

Researchers analysed a small clinical trial of losartan, a drug normally prescribed for hypertension, on 14 patients in Spain, who had Hepatitis C.

The illness was at an advanced stage causing fibrosis – scarring in the liver – which would usually have progressed to liver failure.

Half of the patients in the trial saw the scars in their liver shrink allowing the organ to repair itself. Prof Derek Mann, from Newcastle University said: “At the moment we have no proven effective way of treating people with chronic liver disease other than transplantation.

“This early stage trial has shown that we can shrink liver scarring in some patients and shows promise for a treatment that could make a huge difference to the lives of thousands of people.”

The team whose work is published today in Gastroenterology, say this early stage trial is promising and they now want to carry out several much larger studies – initially involving patients with liver disease caused by obesity and then later alcohol, hereditary and autoimmune diseases.

Liver damage is caused by the unwanted accumulation of excess fibrous connective that can be caused by excess alcohol, obesity and Hepatitis C.

Work carried out in rat and mouse models allowed the researchers to study what was happening inside the liver when losartan was present.

Researchers believe that the drug can remove the source of scar tissue.

As the scar tissue breaks up, the damaged area of the liver is repaired by the body.

Dr Stephen Stewart, who is also part of the study, said the discovery was an exciting development.