Active clinical trials for "Immune System Diseases"

The purpose of this study is to determine the ability of STRATUS OCT and high resolution OCT to detect and to quantify the neural loss in multiple sclerosis and neuromyelitis optica and its subtypes.

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.

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 ?

Graft versus host disease (GVHD) is one of the major causes of death in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. 18F-FDG PET/CT (2-[fluorine-18] fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose, Positron emission tomography- CT) is a noninvasive technique that allows quantifying and precisely localizing 18F-FDG uptake in the entire body. 18F-FDG uptake is caused by increased local metabolic activity. In this study, we aim to evaluate and characterize the correlation between CT-PET findings in patients suspected to have acute GVHD, and the disease course.

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.

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 objective of this study is to describe a paediatric population presenting an acute idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) and their evolution during their therapy in the region Pays de la Loire. The study will particularly evaluate the quality of life of these patients and their parents. The secondary objectives are to identify the predictive factors of the complications, the repetitions and the chronicity of the ITP, to estimate the principal parameters of the economic cost of therapy of the children suffering from ITP according to the protocol of therapy, set up in the region Pays de la Loire and the constitution of a blood sample collection which allow a better understanding of the physiopathology of this disease. It is about a prospective, multicentric clinical epidemiologic study of a paediatric cohort. Patients: 100 children from 0 to 17,99 years suffering from a first discovered ITP. The patients are not included if they present a serious, intercurrent, stabilized chronic pathology or not likely to modify the quality of life of the child and if they present a pathology other than the thrombopenia bringing into play the vital prognosis within a time lower than one year. These patients will be followed for 6 months according to the diagnosis of their ITP. During the 6 months follow-up of each patient, the study will not carry out more consultations, nor more blood tests than the usual follow-up of a child suffering from ITP. On the other hand, in addition to the J0 questionnaire, it will be requested to the patient and to his family to fill in the questionnaires of quality of life and way of life during the consultations of J8, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months. A check-up of autoimmunity at 6 months will be carried out if the thrombopenia persists (this check-up is usual and not-specific to the study). At the time of the blood test for the control of the platelets at J0 and 6 months, an additional blood sample will be carried out: 5 ml are taken for the children of an age ≤ at 2 years, 10 ml from 2 to 4 years and 15 ml of blood for the children of an age > at 4 years. These blood samples are intended for the constitution of a blood sample collection. The protocol of therapy of the children suffering from ITP is homogeneous in all centers, this protocol being a consensus established by the network of Oncopaediatrics of the Pays de la Loire. The instituted treatment will be in function of the gravity of the ITP expressed in 4 stages: Stage I: Platelets > 20 gigas/L and absence of clinical signs. Stage II: Platelets > 10 gigas/L and hemorrhagic signs: haematomas, petechias or occasional epistaxis without repercussion on the daily life. Stage III: moderate. Platelets > 10.000/mm3 and epistaxis with gauze pluggings or mucous lesions. Stage IV: severe. Platelets ≤ 10.000/mm3 or fall of 2 grs/dl of haemoglobin with bleedings: epistaxis, melaena or haemorrhages requiring a blood transfusion or an hospitalization and important changes in the activities of the daily life. Stages I and II do not receive any treatment and benefit from a simple monitoring. Stages III benefit from either a corticosteroid treatment (Méthylprednisolone or Prednisone) at the dose of 4 mg/kg and per day in 2 intervals during 4 days (maximal dose of 100 mg/day) or a monitoring according to the appreciation of the clinician. Stages IV profit in first intention from a treatment by Méthylprednisolone or Prednisone at the dose of 4 mg/kg and per day in 2 intervals during 4 days (maximal dose of 100 mg/jour). The therapeutic attitude and the stadification belong to a regional consensus, established before the study, but each one can decide to apply a treatment according to the gravity of the clinical state of the child.

The Radata-Fuzeon cohort is an observational cohort study to gain a better understanding of Fuzeon (Enfuvirtide) in daily clinical practice. Patients planned to take this drug in a new antiretroviral combination therapy (ART) are eligible to participate in this observation. Physicians may register patients online via the internet. They are offered to get an expert advice suggesting therapeutics for a new ART. Observation interval is every three month. However physicians are allowed to initiate new diagnostics, expert advice and therapeutic changes independently from these intervals if necessary. Total observation time for each patients is planned for two years.

The RATIO registry is a French registry designed by a multidisciplinary group to collect data on opportunistic and severe bacterial infections and lymphoma in patients treated with TNF-a antagonists ( infliximab, etanercept and adalimumab). A total of 486 medical units in metropolitan France participate in the RATIO registry. All diagnosis are retained after validation by 2 qualified infectious disease or haematologist physicians (on the basis of the standardized case report form, the hospitalisation summary, and the microbiological and radiological results). Risk factors for developing these conditions when treated by TNF-a antagonists will be identified in a case control study. Incidence of these diseases will be calculated.