Professor E Louise Thomas and Professor Jimmy Bells’ work on non-invasive MR scans is revolutionising diagnosis and treatment of liver disease.
Through partnerships with the UK Biobank, and SMEs including AMRA and Perspectum, Thomas and Bell are helping to revolutionise non-invasive assessments of liver health using MR scans.
These in-depth scans are increasingly replacing invasive liver biopsies, empowering future progress in the areas of liver disease diagnosis, treatment and mass medical studies.
LiverMultiScanTM (LMS)
Thomas and Bells’ participation in a £40m study with UK Biobank, a study collecting in-depth health information of half a million people, involves imaging 100,000 participants’ tissue and organs.
The ability to measure multiple organs and tissues in a single examination lasting under 10 minutes by MR imaging, has allowed unprecedented numbers of people to participate in the study, creating the world’s largest imaging cohort.
The research project led to Thomas and Bell being awarded a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Perspectum Diagnostics, which enabled the MedTech company to bring its LiverMultiScan (LMS) technology into mainstream clinical use.
The LMS technology enables measurement of the fat and iron stored within the liver, as well as measuring cT1 (a marker or inflammation) without the need for invasive biopsy surgery. The shorter scan time they developed for the UK Biobank reduces the time patients have to spend in uncomfortable scans.
As a result of Thomas and Bell’s collaboration with Perspectum:
- LMS can be used to assess liver injury in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) – a leading cause of early death – and its advanced form, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which causes inflammation.
- LMS is now accessible to clinicians through the development of a software infrastructure for ordering and analysing the data.
- The application of LMS to the Biobank cohort has demonstrated its viability for use in large-scale clinical trials.
Pioneering widescale medical research studies
The use of LMS to screen nearly 50,000 UK Biobank participants has suggested up to 20% of UK adults could have fatty liver disease, with associated health risks, such as type 2 diabetes and cancer.
As Thomas, Bell and Perspectum scaled up the program, they showed, for the first time, that you could routinely scan and analyse large cohorts to assess liver disease at a population scale.
Another 11 research studies followed, in collaboration with Perspectum and the UK Biobank, which further demonstrated LMS’ usefulness for exploring issues such as whether certain ethnicities, genetic factors or body types increase the risk of developing higher liver iron.
LMS is currently being used in over 70 clinical trials across Europe, Asia, and the US, where, in September 2019, it gained FDA approval for use in medical research.
LMS is now being used in large-scale studies, such as the €34M Liver Investigation: Testing Marker Utility in Steatohepatitis (LITMUS) project, which includes 47 international partners from academia and global pharmaceuticals.
A game changer in clinical care
LMS is non-invasive and avoids the discomfort and pain of liver biopsy, which carries risks of excessive bleeding, infection, puncturing nearby tissue or organs, and even death.
An independent study found LMS could almost halve the number of biopsies needed in NAFLD patients.
As a patient who has experienced liver biopsy and as an advocate representing the interests of liver patients, I cannot overstate the importance of developments in non-invasive testing for NASH and other liver diseases.
The President and CEO of the Global Liver Institute
Recognising its accessibility to NHS clinicians, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) issued a “Medtech Innovation Briefing” in 2019, outlining use, cost, and clinical care pathways for LMS.
The speed and scope of LMS could save clinicians considerable funds in the future, and allow them to expand their services, which, in turn, could lead to staff upskilling and job creation.
MR imaging is already saving £150,000 per every 1000 NHS patients, due to the avoidance of biopsies.
Demonstrating the value of knowledge transfer
Thomas and Bells’ engagement with Perspectum has proven transformational for the company, which has increased from 29 to 149 full-time employees since their engagement began in July 2016.
“Our knowledge and capabilities in statistical analysis have greatly improved through this KTP,” a spokesperson for Perspectum confirms. New teams dedicated to supporting MR applications and Image Analysis have been formed “to meet the considerable demands resulting from the commercial success of the pharma business and expansion of the company portfolio.”
Thomas and Bell “took the lead on supporting these increased demands”, upskilling Perspectum staff so the company can now deliver LMS as a standardised service.
Data platform Beauhurst ranked Perspectum as the fastest-growing Life Sciences company, with a 935% increase in turnover between 2016 and 2017.
Perspectum attributes this growth to “the international success of its innovative medical imaging software, including LiverMultiScan.”
LMS is now being rolled out at over 240 national and international sites, with the aim of replacing liver-biopsy as the “gold-standard” for liver assessment.
Find out more
Connect with Louise Thomas
Connect with Jimmy Bell
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