Active clinical trials for "Immune System Diseases"

Rheumatoid arthritis(RA) with a high incidence and high morbidity, the pathogenesis has not been fully elucidated. Fibroblast-like synovial cells excessive proliferation and synovial angiogenesis is the most important cause of RA synovitis and joint destruction. Our study was to find the role of Sonic Hedgehog(SHH) pathway in regulating proliferation of fibroblast-like synovial cells and modulating excess angiogenesis of synovial tissue.

The overall goal of this proposal is to better understand the basis of airway remodeling in severe asthma and how remodeling changes over time. The investigators propose to study a well-characterized cohort of adult and pediatric subjects with severe asthma using a multidisciplinary state-of-the-art approach.

Measuring lung function (FVC, FEV1, DLCO) before, during and after treatment with rituximab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory myositis.

Intestinal acute graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) is a life-threatening complication after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Non-invasive diagnostic procedures are still lacking and diagnosis is difficult. We hypothesized that contrast-enhanced ultrasound sonography (CEUS) could detect microcirculation changes of the bowel walls during intestinal GVHD and help to detect and monitor treatment response. We employed CEUS to prospectively evaluate intestinal GVHD in 83 consecutive transplant patients between 2008 and 2011. Fourteen /83 patients with biopsy-proven intestinal GVHD were selected as study group. Fourteen patients with biopsy-proven stomach GVHD without intestinal symptoms (N=16), normal volunteers (N=6) and patients with neutropenic enterocolitis (N=4), were chosen as control group. All patients were evaluated with both standard transabdominal ultrasonography (US) and CEUS at the onset of intestinal symptoms, during clinical follow up and at flare of symptoms. Standard US revealed non-specific bowel wall thickening, and simultaneous involvement of multiple intestinal segments in 9/14 patients. CEUS showed three distinct patterns of microcirculation changes that correlated with GVHD activity. These findings were not observed in the control group. Moreover, CEUS findings correlated with treatment response and predicted flare of intestinal symptoms. CEUS is a non-invasive, easily reproducible bed-side tool to detect and monitor intestinal GVHD.

This study is expected to contribute to the body of knowledge on the benefits of individuals with MS taking glatiramer acetate (Copaxone®). If patients have less spasticity when taking glatiramer acetate (Copaxone®), they may be more likely to have an improved quality of life. The hypotheses for this study are: Study participants who transition from interferon therapy to glatiramer acetate (Copaxone®) for a six month period will have a decrease in spasticity. Study participants who transition from interferon therapy to glatiramer acetate (Copaxone®) for a six month period will have a change in perceptions of the impact of spasticity on their lives.

The investigators are doing this study to look at sleep problems, daytime sleepiness, and thinking and behavior patterns in children with arthritis and in children without arthritis. Arthritis is a problem with joints. Some children have arthritis and some children do not have arthritis. Sleep disordered breathing is a sleeping problem in which some children snore and have pauses in their breathing during sleep. It is associated with not enough or fragmented sleep, poor school performance, problems paying attention, and behavior problems. The investigators do not know how many children with arthritis have sleep problems, and how it is linked to daytime sleepiness and children's learning, and behavior patterns compared to children without arthritis. The investigators need to study both children with arthritis and children without arthritis to learn more about these connections and to understand if they are the same or different in children with arthritis and in children without arthritis.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate ultrasound hands in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

The purpose of this study is: To assess the validity and reproducibility of the MP Diagnostics HTLV Blot 2.4. To conduct a sensitivity analysis of the HTLV Blot 2.4 using a known positive population.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease. Significant heterogeneity exists in the clinical manifestations and treatment responses in these patients. Metabolomics is a large-scale approach to monitoring as many as possible of the compounds involved in cellular processes in a single assay to derive metabolic profiles. Compared with genomics or proteomics, metabolomics reflects changes in phenotype and therefore function. Up to now, few studies have evaluated the role of metabolomic analysis in the diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of airway disorders. Collection of exhaled breath condensate (EBC) is a newly developed, noninvasive method that may allow clinicians and researchers to assess biochemical profiles in the alveolar lining fluid. This study will apply metabolomics to examine the biomarkers in the EBCs, serum and urine specimens in adult asthmatics.

Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Bone Marrow Transplant