Insert summary sentence Ms Francesca Th'ng Research Fellow Contact details Email: fthng@exseed.ed.ac.uk Title Circulating mRNA bio-markers of inflammatory complications of biliary tract disease. Funding Edinburgh and Lothians Health Foundation Supervisors Mr Damian Mole and Dr James Dear Project Summary NHS Research Scotland (NRS) Career Research team have recently identified a panel of highly sensitive circulating biomarkers for acute liver injury that have been shown to identify liver injury before levels of current standard tests in hospitals become elevated. These markers are microRNA-122 (miR-122), high mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) and keratin-18 (k18). The main aim of this research project is to determine whether these biomarkers can discriminate patients with clinically significant inflammatory complications of gallstones at first presentation to hospital from patients without such complications. The ultimate goal of this study is to develop a rapid near patient test, performed in the emergency department prior to hospital admission, that will allow those patients who do not require hospital admission to be safely discharged and with out-patient follow up investigation and elective procedures if indicated. This would ultimately help to reduce NHS expenses and also help to create extra beds for more acute patients. This article was published on 2024-02-06
