Active clinical trials for "Immune System Diseases"

MERIT-NHL as an addendum to the International Registry of Radioimmunotherapy (RIT registry) pooling clinical data of patients who suffered from a non-Hodgkin´s lymphoma also includes the documentation of the respective FDG-PET and CT-image files in an online archive. Based on these documented clinical and imaging data, the MERIT study group centrally performs an intra- as well as interindividual evaluation of follicular CD20+ lymphoma lesions before and after radioimmunotherapy. According to this, the aim of the MERIT-NHL study is to prospectively identify yet unknown patient- and lesion specific prognostic factors predicting patient´s outcome in line with the therapeutic modality radioimmunotherapy.

Although interim 18F-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET)/computerized tomography (CT) scan has emerged as a powerful prognostic tool in predicting treatment outcome in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the positive predictive value (PPV) of interim PET/CT scanning has not been determined in patients with peripheral T cell lymphoma (PTCL). The sequential interim PET/CT will be prospectively investigated to determine whether it provided additional prognostic information and could be a positive predictable value for the treatment of PTCL.

The goal of this study is to enable the study sponsor to develop a new blood test method for clinicians to accurately predict which individuals with lupus will flare, when the flare will occur, and flare severity. Ultimately such a newly derived test would allow treating physicians to start pre-emptive therapy early, with the goal of achieving remission quickly and with a shorter duration of treatment; identify individuals who will have less severe flares and will thus require less aggressive treatments; or intensify and lengthen treatment for those individuals who will need such therapy. The design of this study is to follow individuals with a known diagnosis of SLE for changes in disease activity during the course of one year of observation. Clinical data and blood and urine samples will be collected at scheduled monthly visits. The clinical data and blood samples will be used for identifying gene expression profile(s) that are associated with increases in SLE disease activity (lupus "flares").

Subjects with either allergic asthma or allergic rhinitis will be recruited to obtain blood. This blood will be used to be stimulated with to whatever the patient allergic. In the laboratory, this stimulated blood will be measured for histamine, leukotrienes, IL-13 and IL-3. These are chemicals responsible for allergy symptoms.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are the most common rheumatic diseases dealt with rheumatologists in Taiwan. In previous studies, the 3 diseases all have broad impacts on health-related quality of life of patients and drive enormous economic burden on patients and society. The objective of this study is to compare health-related quality of life and disease-related costs between patients with the 3 different diseases. We will invite at least 100 patients with AS, RA or SLE respectively who are regularly followed in the outpatient clinic of the Division of Rheumatology at Taichung Veterans General Hospital (VGHTC) to participate in the study. Patients who have cognitive impairment, who are older than 65 years old or younger than 18 years old, who have overlapping syndrome of any 2 of the 3 rheumatic diseases (eg. RA overlapping with SLE) or who have visited rheumatologists in the outpatient clinics at VGHTC for less than 4 times in 2008 will be excluded. Patients who agree to take part will attend a comprehensive clinical examination in the outpatient department. Patients will complete a questionaire including demographic and disease characteristics, and health-related quality of life at the time of survey. The questionaires about disease-related costs will be completed once per quarter throughout 2009. The four questionaires about costs will be given at the time of initial survey and will be returned by returned by mail or in the following outpatient clinics visits every 3 months in 2009. The result of this study will help patients to realize their own health-related quality of life and disease-related costs and help government in Taiwan to realize the socioeconomic burden of the 3 common rheumatic diseases and to allocate health care resources more properly in the future.

In daily clinical use, pulse high dosis corticosteroids are used to treat cerebral edema in different pathological situations ( surgery, trauma, tumors...). Dehydration can theorically concern extra-cellular or intracellular water, or both. The relative proportion of those two components are not known, as well their kinetics. Diffusion Weighted Imaging ( DWI) is a none invasive and none toxic technique to study those phenomena.We can also study the diffusivity anisotropy not using a Gaussian distribution but rather a non- gaussian one, more close to the reality ( q Space Imaging ). Finally, we can study the compartment redistribution between slow and rapid water molecules diffusion by bi-exponential decomposition of the diffusion signal, corresponding, theorically, respectively to the intra- and extra-cellular component. Hypothesis : The high dosis steroid pulse therapy modifies or not the water free diffusion in DWI and qSI ? Is there a modification in the diffusivity of both rapid and slow component ?

We plan to investigate prospectively and simultaneously skin and blood DC subtypes, their donor/recipient origin and the correlation of DC reconstitution kinetics with treatment, clinical outcome and incidence of aGvHD in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

The purpose of this Canada-France study is to develop and validate a multidimensional patient-reported measure of perceived barriers to antiretroviral therapy adherence for HIV-positive patients undergoing treatment that will be theoretically founded, easy to use and helpful to clinicians in their medical decision-making, in a clinical or research setting.

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is one of the more frequent cancers in the western world with approx. 800 new cases annually in Denmark. Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in Denmark accounts for almost 40% of newly diagnosed NHL cases. Treatment with the combination of chemotherapy and monoclonal antibodies has significantly improved prognosis over the past decade, but a large proportion of patients with DLBCL will continue to relapse with our current treatment options. Therefore, there is a need for reliable methods for detection of treatment response as early as possible in the treatment course in order to identify patients who respond poorly to standard treatment and potentially would benefit from a change in treatment strategy. This has still not been established, but a valid early marker is required in order to allow randomized trials of treatment stratified by early response. One of the most promising applications of PET is the metabolic assessment of the early response of cancer treatment. This study is a national prospective multicenter study emanating from the Danish Lymphoma Group (DLG). Patients are scanned after each of the early 4 cycles of chemo therapy. The aim is to establish the correct timing of response evaluation. Additionally, the investigators wish to investigate the optimal qualitative and quantitative method of response assessment in order to predict post-therapeutic remission and long-term prognosis.This study will contribute to interim-PET being implemented in the most optimal way in daily clinical practice.

The aim of the study is to assess improvement in visual evoked potential, cognition, fatigue, micturation and walking impairment under 3 months of Fampyra treatment