Active clinical trials for "Arteritis"

Takayasu's arteritis is a primary systemic vasculitis that affects large vessels and their main branches. The objectives of the present study were to assess: a) the aerobic capacity (CA); b) security of the acute strength exercise session; c) correlation between CA, as well as strength exercise session, with demographic, clinical, therapeutic, comorbid parameters, and presence and degree of vascular damage; d) serum levels of the cytokines

A longitudinal post-marketing surveillance registry nested within the UK GCA Consortium that assesses the effectiveness and safety of tocilizumab in controlling refractory or relapsing forms of GCA in patients who require escalation of therapy to reach sustained remission. Half the patients recruited will have been prescribed tocilizumab (cases) and the other half will be prescribed alternative therapies (controls). There are four study visits over 18 months: baseline, 6 months, 12 months and 18 months. At each visit data is collected on demographics; diagnosis and investigations; previous and concomitant medications; medical history; co-morbidities, vital signs; smoking and alcohol; disease activity and damage; routine laboratory tests; reason for starting escalation therapy. Safety data is collected on an ongoing basis.

Juvenile Takayasu disease is characterized by chronic inflammation that leads to vascular disease. Exercise may render anti-inflammatory effects and protect against cardiovascular events. This trial aims to investigate the therapeutic role of exercise in juvenile Takayasu disease.

To compare the efficacy and cost-effectiveness between purified CD34+ cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells in treatment of critical limb ischemia

Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a pro-inflammatory cytokine, has been found to have a crucial role in the pathogenesis of Giant cel arteritis (GCA). Based on this rationale, several recent studies demonstrated the efficacy of tocilizumab (TCZ), an anti-IL-6 targeted monoclonal antibody, for the treatment of patients with refractory GCA. Confirming previous reports,in a recent retrospective study the investigators successfully treated 10 patient with refractory GCA with TCZ. All patients achieved a complete disease remission evaluated by clinical, laboratory, and positron emission tomography (PET). In a considerable number of GCA patients treated with corticosteroids (CS) the therapy may be interrupted with no disease flares. No data are available on the management of patients achieving the remission with TCZ.

SYNOPSIS The giant cell arteritis (GCA) is the most frequent vasculitis in people over 50 years. Despite recent progress and physiopathogenic, corticosteroids remains the standard treatment for decades with a very good initial clinical efficacy but a high relapse rate (nearly 40% to 6,5 months) during its decay. This sensible population is particularly exposed to the side effects of corticosteroids, leading to think about savings strategies. But the association of immunosuppressive therapy and/or anti- TNFα has not demonstrated benefits in terms of efficiency or long-term tolerance to cumulative doses of prednisone. The responsibility of proinflammatory cytokines such as TNFα, IL- 6 and IL-1 has been studied in the pathogenesis of GCA in temporal artery walls and in mouse models. The primary pathogenic role of IL- 1 is based on the increase in serum or nuclear protein itself or that of its mRNA. The study of temporal artery biopsies has shown increased local production of IL- 1β mRNA, IL- 6 and TGFβ (indicative of macrophage activation ) and those of INFɣ and IL 2 (indicative of T lymphocyte activation). Recently, Ly et al (Ly KH JBS 2014) reported the efficacy of anakinra, a recombinant molecule of IL- 1RA specifically blocking the IL- 1 α/β, in three cases GCA refractory to conventional treatments. Here investigators propose a randomized, multicenter, controlled, double-blind study of anakinra against placebo in addition to corticosteroids in the treatment of GCA. This study will include 70 patients randomized equally in both arms: reference treatment (prednisone plus placebo) or the experimental treatment (prednisone + anakinra). Treatment with prednisone will be identical in the two arms, namely a dose of 0.7 mg/kg/day orally on day 1, followed by a progressive decrease in the dose pattern depending on the weight. In the experimental arm, dose of anakinra is the one usually used, ie 100 mg/day by subcutaneous injection from day 1 until the end of week 16 (S16). In the reference arm of the treatment, a placebo anakinra is associated with corticosteroid in the same packaging, duration and respecting the double-blind. Investigators thus hypothesized that the addition of anakinra to corticosteroid compared to placebo added to the latter, will show a significant decrease in GAC relapse rate. Indeed, the challenge of corticosteroid therapy in this disease is not so much a problem of initial effectiveness, than the adverse events related to relapses and steroid dependence.

The aim of this project is to improve the hemocompatibility of vascular prosthesis with a complete covering of its endoluminal surface with autologous endothelial cells. The objective is to obtain a better bypass permeability with arterial prosthesis replacing low diameter vessels in lower limbs

Giant cells arteritis or Horton disease is a vasculitis that affects great vessels. This is the most frequent vasculitis of the population over the age of 50. This vasculitis is at the origin of an inflammatory infiltrate of arterial tunics, essentially composed of lymphocytes. Clinical signs are a deterioration of general state, unusual cephalgias, jaw pain, scalp hyperesthesia, but can also be serious ischemic complication, especially ophthalmologic with the possibility to go blind. Until now, the standard treatment is a high dosage corticosteroid therapy. Diagnosis is based on criterias of the American College of Rheumatology, dating back to 1990. The relapse rate is important, ranging from 10 to 64 % according to studies. There are also issues of becoming dependent on steroid. So it is important to determine new diagnosis markers and a therapeutic following of giant cells arteritis. With this study several biomarkers of inflammation will be studied in order to determine if one ore many of them have a good sensitivity and special feature for diagnosis and following of giant cells arteritis. The main goal is to determine a new diagnosis marker for giant cells arteritis.

Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a vasculitis of unknown origin, resulting in progressive thickening and stenosis of large and medium arteries (the aorta and its major branches, and the pulmonary arteries). First line therapy of TA consists of high dose corticosteroids (CS). Between 20 and 50% of cases respond to CS alone, with subsequent resolution of symptoms and stabilization of vascular abnormalities. Although second-line agents (methotrexate, azathioprine, mercaptopurine, mycophenolate mofetil) may result in initial remission, relapses remain common when prednisone is tapered. Thus, 50% of CS-resistant or relapsing TA patients may achieve sustained remission with the addition of methotrexate. During the last decade, biologics such as anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (anti-TNFα) and anti-interleukin-6 (anti-IL-6) have been used as third-line treatment in refractory or relapsing TA. Almost 90% of CS-methotrexate resistant TA cases responded to infliximab, an anti-TNFα, and sustained remission was obtained in 37 to 76% of the cases. Tocilizumab, an anti-IL-6 has given similar results with 68% of sustained remission in refractory TA. Irrespective of classical cardiovascular risk factors, the systemic inflammation and CS use play a pivotal role in the occurrence of cardiovascular thrombotic events (CVEs). As CVEs overlap with TA complications it is primordial to drastically taper CS in that vasculitis. We therefore hypothesize that Infliximab or Tocilizumab can achieve a remission in more than 70% of refractory/relapsing TA cases to CS associated to a second-line agent. INTOReTAK, first randomized prospective study in TA, has an original design testing Infliximab and Tocilizumab propensity to achieve over 70% of sustained remission in refractory/relapsing TA and evaluating jointly the 2 arms. The primary objective of this study is to obtain, by arm, ≥ 70% of patients at 6 months after randomization with prednisone ≤ 0.1mg/kg per day and inactive disease (NIH score ≤ 1) during the last 3 months.

Giant cell arteritis , also named Horton's disease, is the most common vasculitis in subjects over 50 years old. The incidence increases with age : from 188 to 290 cases per million inhabitants per year, with a North-South gradient. The major risk of Horton's disease is blindness, unilateral, occurring in 15 to 20% of cases, sometimes preceded by episodes of transient amaurosis. The decrease in visual acuity is often brutal, irreversible and bilateral in 25 to 50% of cases. The mechanism of this blindness is an arterial ischemia: Acute Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy acute anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy (90%), acute retro-bulbar ischaemic optic neuropathy (5%), occlusion of the central artery of the retina (5%). The pathogenesis of this brutal ischemia is not fully understood. One of the hypotheses suggests that, during stimulation by an antigen of the environment, preactivated dendritic cells of the arterial wall would stimulate T lymphocytes. These will recruit cells that cause an inflammatory infiltrate polymorphic predominant at the media level. These lesions may be accompanied by destruction of the internal elastic lamina, with inconstant but pathognomonic presence of multinucleated giant cells. All arteries with internal elastic lamina can be affected by parietal inflammation, which results in stenosis and occlusion, explaining the ischemia. The visual loss is usually abrupt and very severe, leaving the patient with definitely very low or no residual visual acuity. Conventional treatment currently recommended includes systemic corticosteroid therapy at 1 mg / kg / day, preceded or not by 500 mg pulses of methylprednisolone , and associated with antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy (LMWH). Despite the decline in visual acuity thus occurred is then always final. Certainly loss of vision has a major impact on the quality of life of patients. Apart from this lymphocytic inflammation, a process of vascular remodeling is at the origin of the vascular occlusion phenomenon. The endothelin system is a family of amino acids including 3 members: ET1, ET2 and ET3. ET1 is a potent vasoconstrictor. ET1 receptors (ETA and ETB) are expressed in the arteries of patients with giant cell arteritis . The expression of ET1 associated with proliferation of muscle cells in arteries will decrease under the effect of endothelin inhibitors. This has been shown during treatment of pulmonary hypertension. In giant cell arteritis , the endothelin system continues to be very active up to 8 days despite the introduction of systemic corticosteroids. Bosentan is a mixed endothelin receptor antagonist with affinity for both ETA and ETB receptors. This inhibitor is used in treatment of pulmonary artery hypertension, digital ulcerations of systemic sclerosis and critical peripheral arterial ischemia.