Active clinical trials for "Neoplasms"

14,000 new cases of rectal cancer are diagnosed each year, frail and elderly patients represent a rising proportion of these patients. Whilst the gold standard is often to remove the tumour and restore bowel continuity, surgeons will often avoid this procedure in this group of patients as they unfortunately tolerate surgical complications very poorly. Such surgical complications may present with life threatening sepsis, can prolong hospital stay, delay further cancer therapy and in the elderly or frail patient often leads to loss of independence and quality of life. In this setting, there are two alternative procedures (Hartmann's procedure OR intersphincteric APE) that may be used and these are employed in roughly equal measure in the UK (nationwide survey, Dec 2013, unpublished data). It is anecdotally felt that Hartmann's procedure (HP) has a greater risk of surgical complications (30%) and a few small retrospective studies have shown this (1-3), however there are no prospective data to support this view. Whilst some surgeons do choose intersphincteric APE (IAPE) on the basis of a lower surgical complication rate, many do not due to perceived limitations in the technique (longer operating time, risk of tumour perforation), which are unproven. We feel that a larger, prospective dataset is required to demonstrate the superiority of IAPE over HP and convince the remaining surgeons to change procedure. We have explored the possibility of a full randomised trial to answer this question, however this is not feasible due to the difficulty of randomisation of patients. Very little data are available regarding the use of IAPE in the setting of rectal cancer, however many surgeons who do employ the technique, specifically adapt their technique in this setting to reduce the chances of tumour perforation (two stage, stapling off rectum before removing anal canal separately). It is possible that those surgeons who prefer HP have not considered this, and combined with the lack of prospective data are reluctant to change technique. We are confident that if we can demonstrate a significant difference in surgical complication rate and promote a modification to the IAPE surgical technique then we can significantly reduce surgical harm to these frail patients.

The evaluation of the chemotherapy efficacy for gastric cancer patients is usually evaluated by computer tomography scans with RECIST criteria that are performed every two months during the treatment. The management of treatment for gastric cancer needs the development of early biomarkers to evaluate the efficacy in order to avoid unnecessary toxicity in case of early chemotherapy resistance. In this prospective study, we will compare the monitoring of circulating tumor DNA with the results of CT scan according the RECIST criteria and the blood level of CEA and CA 19-9 tumor markers. Thus, the objective of this study is to identify a prognostic and/or predictive biomarker of tumor response according to the tumor DNA circulating assessment in gastric cancer treatment, in order (i) to avoid an unnecessary toxicity of an ineffective treatment that it would be continued uselessly, (ii) and to allow a early changing to an alternative chemotherapy regimen.

The purpose of this project is to develop a process to identify highly personalized antigens that are uniquely expressed by the patient's own leukemia cells that can be used for cellular immune therapy.

we intend to evaluate the association between non-adherence to Lenalidomide in Multiple Myeloma (MM) patients and overall response rates and time to progression (TTP). Adherence will be measured in several ways, including by electronic monitoring, which is the gold standard method.

This study evaluate the association of body composition (mainly free-fat mass), clinical and biochemical parameters with development of toxicity in patients under treatment with Carboplatin/Paclitaxel in advanced NSCLC.

Malignant Pleural Effusions (MPE) are a common problem with around 40,000 new cases in the UK each year. The presence of an MPE suggests a poor prognosis of on average of 3-12 months. It is therefore vital that the investigators consider how respiratory and palliative care physicians can best support patients with MPEs to have the best quality of life possible. Breathlessness is the most common presenting symptom of an MPE and so impact on this has previously been studied . Cancer-related fatigue is very common with evidence suggesting around 40% of patients experience fatigue at diagnosis and up to 90% during anti-cancer treatment such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Review of the literature suggests that whether interventions to manage MPEs can improve patient fatigue has not previously been studied. The aim of this study is to assess if interventions for MPEs could potentially improve patient fatigue as this information will be valuable for both patients and referring health-care professionals when making the decision of whether to have a procedure or not and build on the current evidence base around management of MPEs. The study will be part of a Masters in Clinical Research and will be within a single trust. It will be a pilot study for a potentially larger multi-center study. With this in mind, aspects of how the study runs and notes on how it could be improved upon will be carefully recorded.

This project intends to use multiple types of biological samples from glioma patients and mouse intracranial tumor models as research objects, and comprehensively apply a series of omics sequencing technologies and molecular biology technologies to jointly define the following research objectives :

Explore new markers based on portal venous blood sampling to establish novel diagnostic models for identification of malignant pancreatic mass.

This is a multi-center observational study of atezolizumab combination therapy in patients with unresectable, advanced and recurrent non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC) or extensive disease small cell lung cancer(ED-SCLC). 800 patients in NSCLC cohort and 400 patients in ED-SCLC cohort will be enrolled in this trial to assess the efficacy and safety of this combination.

This project aims to implement a health prevention program for smokers or former smokers including early detection of lung cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The clinical activity is completed by a pre-clinical evaluation of molecular bio-markers of early diagnosis of these diseases, with the aim of strengthening the sensitivity and specificity of the screening program. The project also includes a cost-effectiveness assessment to validate the feasibility of the program. Since lung cancer, CVD and COPD are among the deadliest smoking-related pathologies, the program includes actions aimed at raising awareness among primary care physicians, increasing the smoking cessation rate of participating subjects to improve quality of life.