Emerging treatments for primary sclerosing cholangitis

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a chronic, cholestatic, idiopathic liver disease that can progress to end-stage liver disease, cirrhosis and cholangiocarcinoma. PSC is an uncommon and highly heterogeneous disease, associated with inflammatory bowel disease and a complex pathophysiology. To date, no medical therapies have proved effective. The only available treatment for end-stage PSC is liver transplant, but recurrence is a significant complication.

Areas covered: This review will explore previously tested treatments, discuss current treatment strategies and present viewpoints about future emerging therapies in PSC. We searched PubMed using the noted keywords. We included data from full-text articles published in English. Further relevant articles were identified from the reference lists of review articles.

Expert commentary: The development of new therapies in PSC has been challenging. However, with greater awareness of the disease nowadays, new insights into the disease may help in the design of future therapeutic agents in PSC and ultimately in effective therapies.

KEYWORDS:

• Primary sclerosing cholangitis
• ursodeoxycholic acid
• antibiotics
• fecal microbiota transplantation
• antifibrotic agents
• obeticholic acid

Declaration of interest

K. Lindor is on the advisory board for Intercept and Shire. E. J. Carey is on the advisory board for NGM Biopharmaceuticals and TARGET PBC. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.