Targeted Metabolic Profiling in Deep Venous Thrombosis Version 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Targeted Metabolic Profiling of Deep Vein Thrombosis
IRAS ID
245270
Contact name
Kemal Ismail Kemal
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 4 months, 2 days
Research summary
Deep venous thrombosis(DVT) is a blood clot, usually affecting the legs, causing pain, swelling, and redness. The clot damages the veins, which can result in chronic pain, swelling and ulceration. This is called the post-thrombotic syndrome, which impacts heavily on patients’ life and work. If the clot dislodges and travels to the lungs, it becomes a pulmonary embolus (PE), which can be life threatening. Together, DVT and PE affect 500,000 people in Europe every year, representing the most common cause of hospital acquired death. They are expensive diseases due to the cost of treatment and the days lost from people being unable to work.
DVT is diagnosed by clinical examination, risk scoring and a blood test called D dimer, a product of the clot. If negative, it is unlikely that DVT is present. However, many conditions can raise D-dimer levels, making it less useful when positive. Ultrasound can confirm the presence of clot but often this is not seen. The clot can take time to form and patients may not experience symptoms immediately. This is a problem for treatment, as new, clot-busting medication works best in the first 2 weeks after a DVT and it is difficult to tell when the clot formed.Metabonomics is highly sensitive technology that detects very small chemicals; it is being used successfully in cancer and is a tool that can help better understand DVT and generate new tests to help patients.
Previous departmental work has shown that a chemical difference exists in patients with DVT. The aim of this study is to not only confirm the presence of these chemicals in a different group of DVT patients, but also to calculate chemical concentrations. This will improve our understanding of how DVT develops and provide a way to develop a test that is better than D-dimer.REC name
London - Surrey Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/0403
Date of REC Opinion
10 Jun 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion