What this means
This trial will test whether a 12-week online program helps physical strength and movement in people waiting for a liver. It is still recruiting, so no results are available yet.
Plain-English summary written by an AI model from the registry listing.
- Status
- Recruiting
- Who can join
- Ages 18 and over · 177 patients waiting for liver transplant at 6 centres across Canada
- Where
- 6 sites
The science
- Registered title
- Online Prehabilitation for Patients Awaiting Liver Transplantation
- Trial ID
- NCT05899231 ↗
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Study type
- interventional
- Conditions
- Cirrhosis, Liver, Liver Transplant Surgery, Liver Disease
- What is tested
- Prehabilitation Programming
- Sponsor
- University of Alberta
- Ages
- 18 Years to no maximum
- Dates
- First posted Jun 12, 2023 · updated Apr 8, 2026
Registry summary
Physical frailty is common in patients awaiting liver transplantation and has been associated with poor health outcomes. There is promising data from small studies showing that behavioural, nutrition, exercise therapy (prehabilitation) improves physical function in patients while they are waiting for a liver transplant.
The proposed trial will assess if a 12-week online prehabilitation program improves physical function in patients listed for liver transplantation. Over 4 years, 177 patients will be recruited from 6 transplant centres across Canada and will be randomized to receive either the online prehabilitation program or usual care.
The primary outcome of physical function will be evaluated using the FTSST at baseline and 12 weeks (or last timepoint before transplant) assessed virtually or in-person. Secondary outcomes include liver specific physical frailty, aerobic fitness, health-related quality of life (QoL), participant experience and acceptability. Exploratory outcomes include other virtual and in-person physical function measures, covert hepatic encephalopathy (CHE), sarcopenia, malnutrition, adherence, behaviour factors, clinical and post-transplant outcomes. Results will be compared between the intervention and usual care groups.
Sites (6)
- Foothills Medical Centre, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Kaye Edmonton Clinic, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
- London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, Canada
- Toronto General Hospital - Ajmera Transplant Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- McGill University Health Centre, Montreal, Quebec, Canada