Acquisition of Cardiac Function Parameters in MRI and Echocardiography in Patients with Ethyltoxic Liver Cirrhosis and Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt (TIPSS) Placement

Additional to standard clinical practice Patients will receive a cardiac magnetic resonance imaging without contrast. Measured parameters are enddoastolic and endsystolic volume (in ml oder ml/body surface area (BSA)), stroke volume (in ml) of right and left ventricle absolute and relatvie to body surface area (BSA), ejection fraction in % of right and left ventricle, myocardial Strain in % of right and left ventricle if applicable. T1 and T2 relaxation times are obtained and aortic and pulmonary artery flow parameters are measured.

We will take additional blood samples for the analysis of markers of bacterial translocation (e.g. LBP, EndoCAb, 16S rRNA), detection of bacterial markers (bacterial extracellular vesicles), inflammatory markers (e.g. IL-1ß, TNF-α, TGF-ß, IL-6, CXCL8, IL1-RA, IL-10, IL-18) and monocyte/macrophage activation markers (sCD14, sCD163, sCD87, sCD206), bile acids (including TCA, GCA, GCDCA, TCDCA, TLCA, GLCA, TDCA, GDCA, CA, CDCA, UDCA, DCA, TUDCA, LCA), lipids and lipoproteins (triglyerides, cholesterol, LDL/HDL cholesterol), coagulation factors (e.g. VWF, ADAMTS13, fibrinogen), markers of cardiac remodeling (e.g. NT-proBNP; troponin, VEGF-D, cleaved Gasdermin D, HMGB1) and Immunophenotyping of monocytes/macrophages, T and B cells (e.g. CD14, CD16, MERTK, CD4, CD127, CD25, TREM1/2).

Patients will receive an extended echocardiographic protocol. In addition to standard clinical parameters, we will collect study specific parameters such as LV EF in %, global longitudinal strain in %, septal e' velocity (cm/s), E/e' ratio, left atrial volume index (LAVI) (in ml/m2), tricuspid regurgitation velocities (m/s).