Active clinical trials for "Respiratory Tract (Lung and Bronchial) Diseases"

To investigate the inflammasome response of inflammatory and resting macrophage derived from healthy human participants by stimulation using MAC or MAB bacilli. To compare the difference of inflammasome response of inflammatory macrophage by MAC/MAB bacilli stimulation between MAC/MAB-LD patients and the colonizers. To study the diagnostic aid from immunological markers in inflammasome response in inflammatory macrophage stimulated by MAC/MAB.

A single center case-control study with 100 COPD patients will be organized to compare patients with and without bronchiectasis with regard to the presence of Aspergillus in sputum samples, Aspergillus sensitization and vitamin D. Induced sputum samples will be optimized for culture, Aspergillus galatomannan analysis and RT-PCR. This study is part of a larger project in which we assume that chronic respiratory infection by Aspergillus fumigatus and the accompanying immune response play an important role in the development of bronchiectasis in COPD. We suspect that this mechanism is controlled by vitamin D and it fails by suppression of the vitamin D receptor by Aspergillus fumigatus. The present study is designed by the Laboratory of pneumology and will be conducted in collaboration with the Laboratory of clinical bacteriology and mycology of the Catholic University of Leuven.

The overall aim with this project is to describe the correlation between measured and charted saturation after intensive care and also describe the saturation-pattern in these patients. The investigators will also correlate post-ICU desaturations measured as oxygen denaturation index and complications to pre-ICU obstructive sleep apnea and the STOP BANG screening questionnaire.

The investigators plan to recruit patients for a prospective study in patients in need of evaluation for lung lesions suspicious for cancer. Saliva samples will be collected before diagnostic evaluation including biopsy with subsequent blinded examination of the salivary markers without knowledge of the disease status. This prospective recruitment with retrospective blinded evaluation or PRoBE design satisfies the highest standards recommended by the National Cancer Institute for biomarker development. This process limits the selection bias that can confound retrospective studies. As the primary endpoint, a pre-specified multi-marker panel will be evaluated based on the combination of sensitivity and specificity. In addition, seven pre-specified individual candidate mRNA cancer markers and six internal reference or "housekeeping" genes will be evaluated. The performance of new multi-marker panels will also be assessed and compared with the prior pre-specified model based on sensitivity and specificity combinations as well as the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve.

The primary objective of this study is to determine whether baseline DOC screening can add to clinical and demographic data to predict the occurrence of a composite negative outcome (any of: recurrent stroke, myocardial infarction, death, or admission to a long-term care (LTC) / complex continuing care (CCC) facility) within one year of screening, in stroke prevention clinic patients.

Lung transplantation is a well established method for surgical therapy for patients with end stage pulmonary disease. The investigators seek to determine to which extent the pulmonary vascular barrier gets harmed during lung transplantation and whether pulmonary edema after reperfusion can be monitored with measurement of extravascular lung water index (ELWI). Additionally the investigaors are going to evaluate the correlation between ELWI and shedding of the endothelial glycocalyx. The study is designed as a prospective observational cohort study.

Early adenocarcinoma of the lung has an excellent five-year survival after resection. However, its clinical and radiologic presentation is highly variable. Traditional means for preoperative diagnosis such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET-CT) and trans-thoracic needle biopsy demonstrate unacceptable false positive and negative rates. Telomere biology is activated aberrantly is most lung cancers but has not been studied in early stages to the best of our knowledge. The objective of this study is to evaluate telomere length and activity with suspected early stage adenocarcinoma of the lung.

We would like to investigate our hypothesis of a higher prevalence of nasal fracture in the history of idiopathic rhinitis (IR) patients compared to healthy controls. Therefore a retrospective analysis of 310 patients with a nasal fracture in the past would be useful to investigate the incidence of IR in this cohort afterwards (5-10 y later).

The aim of the study is to document the left and right ventricular function in patients with sclerodermia associated pulmonal arterial hypertension via 3D echocardiography. The results of this study should help to generate hypothesis for further future studies. The primary hypothesis is that the increased use of modern image guided methods could provide essential aspects for the follow up.

Limb muscle dysfunction, characterized by atrophy and weakness, is amongst the most troublesome systemic consequences of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) leading to poor functional status and premature mortality. One prevailing hypothesis stipulates that the deterioration in muscle structure and function during COPD results from a spillover of inflammatory mediators from the lungs to the systemic circulation and then to the muscles.