Active clinical trials for "Scleroderma, Diffuse"

In this double-blinded, placebo-controlled, fixed-dose, study patients will be randomly assigned to take placebo or 20 mg tadalafil thrice weekly for 6 weeks. After 6 weeks a wash out period of 2 week will be observed and then the two groups will be switched over to receive the other drug. We planned a priori to include 20 patients. The concomitant medication for treatment of rheumatic disease remained unchanged during the whole study. Patient will undergo clinical and lab evaluation for organ damage for kidney and lungs. ECHO heart will be done at base line to assess the PAH and LV function and repeated at the end of the study. Blood pressure will be recorded at each visit. A physician unaware of the treatment group will record skin score and appearance of new cutaneous ulcers. The primary outcome variables will be frequency and duration of Raynauds attacks, evolution of trophic digital lesions and change in flow mediated dilatation of the brachial artery. Flow mediated dilatation of the brachial artery will be done at baseline 6 and 12 weeks.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety of Dasatininb in the treatment of scleroderma pulmonary interstitial fibrosis.

This is a pilot study analyzing the effect of sildenafil therapy on digital ulcers in systemic sclerosis. We want to analyze ulcer healing by measuring the size of digital ulcers and their count and analyze the effect of sildenafil on angiography.

This is a research study of an investigational product called Mycophenolate mofetil (MMF). The study is designed to establish the safety and potential benefit of MMF. MMF has proven one of the most effective medications to date for SLE and associated nephritis. It also appears to be active in polymyositis and dermatomyositis. This medication inhibits inosine monophosphate dehydrogenase, the rate-limiting enzyme in synthesis of guanosine nucleotides. It blocks the type II isoform found in activated lymphocytes more potently than the type I isoform inhibiting both T- and B-lymphocytes. In SSc, MMF has been tried after anti-thymocyte globulin in one small open label study with efficacy with a significant improvement in skin score. We will test the safety and efficacy of MMF in SSc. All study patients will receive the study medication. The effect of the study medication will be examined in two subgroups of patients: those with early or progressive skin disease (skin substudy) and those with muscle disease (muscle substudy). The change in modified Rodnan skin score (MRSS) and creatinine phosphokinase (CK) for, respectively, the skin and muscle substudies at 6 months after treatment will be compared to baseline values.

Raynaud's phenomenon is thought to occur when, in response to cold or emotional stress, there is closure of the digital arteries and cutaneous arterioles leading to the clinical finding of sharp demarcated digital pallor and cyanosis of the distal skin of the fingers and/or toes. Patients often continue to experience problems despite current available treatment. The investigators' study will investigate the use of a new vasodilator called Fasudil, a Rho-kinase inhibitor. The investigators' hypothesis is that Fasudil will prevent vasoconstriction of digital and cutaneous arteries during a standard laboratory based cold exposure and will therefore improve digital blood flow and skin temperature recovery time following cold challenge. These data will provide the rationale for a more elaborate clinical trials in real life situations.

This study will asses the long term safety and efficacy of oral bosentan to patients suffering from Interstitial Lung Disease.

Researchers from the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) are conducting a study to evaluate whether mycophenolate mofetil (an immunosuppressive medication, trade named CellCept) is safe and effective for preventing the lung damage from scleroderma from getting worse.

This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multi-center study will carry out to assess the efficacy of GB-0998 in the treatment of the systemic sclerosis based on the changes in modified Rodnan total skin thickness score (TSS) as primary endopoint, and in addition, to assess the safety of GB-0998.

Scleroderma is a systemic disorder categorized as an immunologically mediated disease that causes collagen deposition of skin and visceral organs. The molecular pathogenesis of scleroderma has been elusive, although vasculopathy and immune mediated mechanisms are thought to be important. Once extensive cutaneous or visceral disease occurs, prognosis is significantly shorter than the general population. Although various treatments have been tried, none of them seems to have changed the natural history of scleroderma. Standard dose immunosuppressive treatment has been disappointing. Recently, cyclophosphamide at 1-2 mg/kg/day orally or 800-1400 mg intravenous (IV) monthly for 6-9 months has proven effective in treatment of scleroderma alveolitis (1). Recent phase I studies of immunoablation with autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) showed some promising data, but the exact efficacy is undetermined (2,3). We now propose, as a phase II randomized study, autologous unmanipulated PBSCT versus pulse cyclophosphamide in patients with systemic scleroderma.

A six-month clinical research trial to evaluate the effectiveness of an investigational medication for the treatment of dry eye syndrome in patients that have been diagnosed with moderate to severe dry eye syndrome, an autoimmune disorder AND/OR females 65 years of age or older.