Thermal Imaging of the Peripheral Vasculature in Liver Disease.

This is a feasibility study, to assess if thermal imaging and/or near infrared imaging will be useful in identifying changes in the peripheral circulation in patients with different stages of liver disease.

The aim of this study is to use new and advanced thermal imaging techniques to identify changes in the peripheral circulation and hand temperature in patients with liver disease. These changes could be used as a non-invasive marker of the severity and progression of liver disease. Thermal imaging will also be used to assess the changes in the peripheral vasculature with the use of terlipressin, a drug used as treatment for specific complications of liver disease.

Patients with acute or chronic liver disease from any aetiology will be recruited, along with patients without liver disease as healthy controls. Patients with disease or on drugs known to affect the peripheral vasculature will be excluded.

All studies will be performed in a ward setting in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. The subjects will be required for up to three sessions, each lasting 30 minutes. The session will involve static thermal images being taken, and video images of the hands warming up after being cooled for 30 seconds in water at a temperature of 7 degrees Celsius. If the patient is receiving terlipressin therapy, static images will be taken before, during and after terlipressin therapy.