Administration of Rifaximin to Improve Liver Regeneration and Outcome Following Major Liver Resection

Summary

Surgery is in almost all cases the only potentially curative treatment option for patients with primary or secondary malignancies of the liver. However, in most cases oncological resections ("R0-resections") can only be achieved by performing major liver resections (4 or more liver segments), which is related to considerable postoperative complications such as systemic infections and postoperative liver insufficiency (postresectional liver failure (PRLF)). Despite optimized preoperative and postoperative strategies of care presently, up to 32-55% of patients display severs postoperative complications (Clavien score ≥ 3a) and 5% even suffer from a severe PRLF. Recent observations in murine disease models as well as human patients suggested that postoperative alterations of hemodynamics within the portal vein tract as well as postoperative modulations of the immune response facilitates the translocation of gut bacteria in the blood, leading to systemic infections and sepsis. Moreover it became apparent that inflammatory mediators, released by the gut microbiota might negatively affect postoperative liver regeneration. Rifaximin (Xifaxan®) is a novel and potent, semisynthetic antibiotic that efficiently acts against most enteric bacteria and significantly reduced liver inflammation and liver fibrosis in animal studies. Moreover, Rifaximin is very well tolerated, even in patients with liver insufficiency.

Timeline

Start

2016-02

Primary completion

2020-11-20

Completion

2020-11-20

Publications

• Bednarsch J, Czigany Z, Loosen SH, Heij L, Ruckgaber L, Maes H, Krause JP, Reen M, Toteva B, Vosdellen T, Bruners P, Lang SA, Ulmer TF, Roderburg C, Luedde T, Neumann UP. Perioperative rifaximin is not associated with enhanced functional and volumetric recovery after major liver resection. Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 9;11(1):17936. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-97442-w.

Drugs

Indications