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Scans may one day check kidney scarring without a needle biopsy

Recruiting · Patrick Schjelderup

What this means

This is a trial registration, so no results are posted yet. Researchers plan to follow living kidney donors, recipients and healthy adults with repeated MRI scans for two years.

Plain-English summary written by an AI model from the registry listing.

Status
Recruiting
Who can join
Ages 18–80
Where
2 sites

Contacts and how to join ↗

The science

Registered title
Multiparametric MRI in a Prospective Cohort of Living Kidney Donors, Recipients, and Healthy Controls: Correlations With Markers of Renal Function, Fibrosis and Ageing
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
observational
Conditions
Kidney Transplantation, Multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Living Donors, Renal Fibrosis, Senescence
What is tested
Renal transplantation, Living kidney donation
Sponsor
Patrick Schjelderup
Ages
18 Years to 80 Years
Dates
First posted Jan 18, 2024 · updated Aug 27, 2026

Registry summary

Development of renal fibrosis is the irreversible culmination of various renal diseases and independently predicts adverse outcomes. Currently renal fibrosis can only be diagnosed by performing a renal biopsy. The procedure is invasive and is limited by sampling bias.

In recent years there has been a significant development in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based techniques. MRI can provide highly detailed anatomical images. Other MRI measures allow quantitative measurements of perfusion, oxygenation, tissue stiffness and diffusion of water molecules within tissue. The combination of several MRI techniques sensitive to different biophysical tissue properties in a single scan session is referred to as multiparametric MRI (mpMRI).

Emerging evidence suggests that mpMRI could represent a method for indirect characterization of renal microstructure and extent of fibrosis. So far, studies performed in living kidney donors and recipients have been mostly cross-sectional. For mpMRI to transition to the clinical setting there is a need for validation of MRI-based measures with currently used reference methods for quantifying renal function and fibrosis.

The aim of this longitudinal observational study in a cohort of living kidney donors, recipients and healthy controls is to investigate the utility of repeated mpMRI over a period of 2 years. MRI-based measures will be compared to current reference methods for quantifying renal function and fibrosis.

The investigators hypothesize that there will be significant correlations between MRI-based measures, renal function determined by precise measurement of glomerular filtration rate and extent of fibrosis determined by renal biopsy. MRI-based measures are expected to be predictive of renal function decline and development of renal fibrosis.

This study could provide valuable data that will be helpful in moving the field of renal mpMRI forward, with the goal of providing a novel and non-invasive method for the diagnosis of renal pathology.

Sites (2)

  • Department of Renal Medicine, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Central Jutland, Denmark
  • Department of Nephrology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, North Denmark, Denmark
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