Active clinical trials for "Immune System Diseases"

Human papillomavirus (HPV)-infection belong to the most common sexually transmitted diseases worldwide. HIV-infected men having sex with men /MSM) are strongly associated with a higher prevalence of genitoanal HPV-infection, and perianal HPV-infections have been detected in up to 90% of HIV-positive men. The data concerning the incidence of oral HPV-infection in HIV-positive men, especially in the era of highly antiretroviral therapy, are conflicting. Thus, this prospective study mainly focuses on the incidence and prevalence of oral HPV-infection, spectrum of HPV-types, and oral high-risk HPV viral load in HIV-positive men.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory systemic disease. It has a worldwide distribution and can affect all age group. The peak incidence is between fourth and sixth decade. It is more prevalent in women, and it's prevalence in the general population in North America is between 0.2-1.5%. The etiology of RA is unknown, although clusters of the disease in families and high concordance in mono-zydotic twins support genetic predisposition. The prevalence of fatty liver disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis is currently unknown. We wish to study the link between the two conditions by performing a son graphic imaging of the liver in a cohort of RA patients. If indeed a high prevalence of NAFLD will be found in the RA patients, further support will be landed for the link between inflammation and fatty liver disease. These findings may also have implications regarding the management and follow up of RA patients. The validity of sonographic imaging for detection of fatty liver diseases is currently accepted: On ultrasonographic, fatty infiltration of the liver produces a diffuse increase in echogenicity as compared with that of the kidneys. Ultrasonography has a sensitivity of 89% and a specificity of 93% in detecting steatosis and sensitivity and specificity of 77% and 89% respectively in detecting increase fibrosis. In view of all the above data, we expected to find higher prevalence of fatty liver in the patients with higher inflammation markers compare with patients with lower markers.

Prospective Data Collection of Newly Diagnosed Hodgkin's Disease and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Cases

Vasculitis is group of diseases where inflammation of blood vessels is the common feature. Patients typically present with fever, fatigue, weakness and muscle and joint aches. These symptoms are very common among many different diseases, not just vasculitis. A clustering of other symptoms, physical examination findings, blood tests, radiology and biopsy help make the diagnosis. There are currently no criteria to help doctors make a diagnosis of vasculitis when a patient presents with these non specific symptoms and they are reliant on previous experience and disease definitions. One of the aims of this project is to develop diagnostic criteria for the primary systemic vasculitides (granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener's), microscopic polyangiitis, Churg Strauss syndrome, polyarteritis nodosa, giant cell arteritis, Takayasu arteritis). We, the investigators, will do this by studying a large group of patients with vasculitis and comparing them to a large group of patients that present in a similar way, but do not have vasculitis. By comparing the 2 groups we will create a list of items to differentiate between vasculitis and 'vasculitis mimics'. We also aim to update the current classification criteria. Classification criteria are used to group patients into different types of vasculitis, once a diagnosis of vasculitis has been made, and are useful for studying patients in clinical trials with similar or identical diseases. The current classification criteria (American college of Rheumatology 1990 criteria) were developed 20 years ago, before the availability of some important diagnostic tests (e.g. antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies [ANCA]), and are now not consistent with some of the current disease definitions. Therefore to progress future research in vasculitis, it is important that the classification criteria are updated. We will recruit 260 patients with each of the 6 types of vasculitis and compare them with 1300 controls (patients with the 5 other types of vasculitis), in order to determine the optimal combination of symptoms, signs and investigations that classify each person into the appropriate group.

To determine wether multimodal MRI (conventinal T1 and T2 sequences, diffusion, magnetization transfer, spectroscopy) is reproducible; to follow up a cohort of patients with early remmittent MS after treatment with interferon.

This study aims to show that the MedGem indirect calorimetry measurement device will be feasible to use in children with GVHD. Also, it aims to show that children with chronic GVHD will have elevated REE that is not adequately predicted by standard equations.

Fatigue is a frequent and disabling symptom in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The pathophysiology of this sign is not fully understood. Some data suggest that the fatigue is associated with sleep disorders. The aim of this study is to determine the polysomnographic parameters in MS patients with fatigue in comparison to MS patients without fatigue.

The purpose of this study is to develop a tool to better predict clinical allergy to peanut, so that those who are skin test positive but non allergic will not have to unnecessarily avoid peanut, and those with true allergy can be diagnosed, possibly without oral ingestion challenge, and treated appropriately

Bone marrow consists of a complex hematopoietic cellular component.When the blood progenitor cells differentiate to mature cells, they will exit unassisted to peripheral blood. On the other hand, the immature cells trapped by marrow-blood barrier. However, malignant transformation of the hematopoietic progenitor cells in AML and CML results in a blockade of their ability to terminally differentiate, causing a rapid accumulation of immature cells.Chemokines have been shown to direct the movement of cells between intravascular and extravascular compartments.The CXC chemokine CXCL12, the ligand of CXCR4, activates distinct signaling pathways that may mediate cell migration.In the preliminary research, we analyze the CXCR4 expression and the chemotactic response of CXCL12 and peripheral plasma in six leukemia cell lines (HL-60, HL-CZ, K562, U937, Raji and Jurkat) and found that three categories among them could be suggested: one is CXCR4 (-) and CXCL12 response (-), such as HL-CZ and K562 cells; the other is CXCR4 (+) and CXCL12 response (-), such as HL-60 and Raji cells; the rest is CXCR4 (+) and CXCL12 response (+), such as Jurkat and U937 cells. These results make us wonder that the leukemic cells could egress to PB from BM is due to destruction of homing process or the activation of mobilization process through CXCR4-CXCL12 axis dysfunction. Therefore,we will focus on evaluating the mechanism of CXCR4-CXCL12 axis dysfunction in the various leukemic cell lines and primary leukemic cells.

The purpose of this study is to see the correlation of polarization and the expresison of chemokine receptors of T help cells after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and clinical course graft-versus-host disease.