Congratulations to the BALANCE study team who received greenlight this morning and recruited their first participant before 10am!
The BALANCE study aims to recruit 30 participants with psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis (often called psoriatic disease) across four NHS sites in England. Liver disease is common in individuals with psoriatic disease due in part to some of the medications that are used to try to treat it. To be eligible, participants must be switching to the new biologic treatment, Bimekizumab (IL17A&F inhibitor), as part of their standard care. Participants will receive a multi-organ MRI scan before treatment with Bimekizumab and 6 months after starting treatment. The team have contracted with Perspectum who own a new analysis software called, CoverScan, which can use MRI data to quantify inflammation and fibrosis in the liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas and spleen. The study’s main aim is to assess the impact of Bimekizumab on measures of liver disease and investigate the underlying pathological mechanisms.
BALANCE is an OCTRU EMR study led by Prof Laura Coates (CI) and Mimi Bogale (Trial Manager).