Active clinical trials for "Digestive System Diseases"

PRIMARY: To compare the frequency of and time to relapse of Cytomegalovirus (CMV) gastrointestinal disease following foscarnet induction therapy only versus induction plus maintenance therapy. SECONDARY: To determine frequency of and time to recurrence of gastrointestinal symptoms, response rate of pathological lesions, and incidence of nongastrointestinal CMV disease in this patient population.

This study focuses on the use of contrast enhanced low-dose CT imaging as a modality to differentiate between uncomplicated and complicated acute appendicitis. Accurate differential diagnosis allows the assessment of all available treatment options. Complicated acute appendicitis requires emergency appendectomy, while uncomplicated acute appendicitis can be safely and efficiently treated with antibiotics in the majority of patients. Our study group already published the results of the initial OPTICAP trial enrolling patients with BMI under 30 showing similar accuracy between the low-dose and the stadard dose CT, but a significant dose reduction associated with the low-dose CT. All patients will undergo both imaging protocols as the standard CT is also optimized for a low as possible radiation dosage and imaging sequence per patient is randomized due to the optimization of contrast media injection timing. All patients participating in this study will be treated operatively with a laparoscopic appendectomy to obtain histological confirmation for the diagnosis to evaluate the accuracy of the CT imaging. The aim of this study is to optimize a well-performing low-dose CT imaging protocol to use in the diagnosis of uncomplicated acute appendicitis in patients with body mass index over 30 kg/m2.

The aim of the study is to determine wether subcutaneus suction drain (type redon-drain) protect against surgical side infection by laparotomy in general surgery.

This is a single blind, dose escalating, placebo-controlled, crossover study of gluten-degrading drug PvP001 administered to healthy volunteers (age 18-64 years). Subjects will be randomized to one of three groups representing different levels of gluten exposure - low, medium, or high - in a single meal. Within each gluten exposure group, increasing doses of PvP001 (or placebo) will be administered.

This study aims to assess the effect, if any, on the adenoma detection rate of BowelScope bowel cancer screening flexible sigmoidoscopies by using the Endocuff Vision device.

Background: Breath testing for food intolerances is becoming routine in patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID). Both FGID and saccharide intolerances (FODMAPs: fermentable oligo-, di-, polysaccharide and polyols, e.g. lactose, fructose, sorbitol) are common (>10% of any given population) and often respond to dietary modification. The breath tests are based on quantification of gas excretion in breath as a sign of malabsorption and symptom provocation, but are likely subject to considerable psychological bias. The role of expectation and other psychological effects on breath testing has not been reported, but is crucial for the validation of these increasingly wide-spread tests with considerable dietary and potentially deleterious consequences. Fructose has been shown to result in short term pro-inflammatory metabolic responses, but these effects have not been studied as underlying causes for intolerance symptoms in fructose intolerant patients with FGID. Aim: To investigate the psychological component and the short-term metabolic effects of fructose breath testing in patients referred for evaluation of FGID using placebo. Additionally, to assess baseline predictors for a positive breath test result. Methods: Fructose intolerance (defined by a positive symptom index) and malabsorption (defined by increased breath hydrogen/methane concentrations) will be determined in 30 successive male and female FGID in a single centre using breath-testing. Fructose 35g, given double-blind as well as open, a sweet placebo (cyclamate/saccharine; Assugrin®) and a neutral (still water) placebo given double-blind will be compared in a randomized, cross-over sequence and according to our standardised procedure on four separate study days. Symptoms will be recorded using standardised questionnaires and breath concentrations of H2 and CH4 will be measured during testing on the four study days. Somatisation and psychological profiles will be assessed by questionnaires. Blood samples will be obtained before and during provocation testing to assess short-term responses to fructose loading by metabolomics. Fructose, blinded and open, and placebo responses will be compared and baseline predictors for a positive breath tests assessed.

Inflammatory activities in the gastrointestinal tract are accompanied by an increase in blood flow in the intestinal wall layers of the respective organs. Also in chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, the release of vasoactive inflammatory mediators leads to vasodilation and consecutive increase of blood flow in the bowel wall. So far, these changes in blood flow can be detected by power Doppler sonography without being part of routine clinical diagnostics. Another promising option for non-invasive measurement of blood flow in the intestinal wall is Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography (MSOT). Previous studies have shown that MSOT can be used to quantitatively measure hemoglobin in the bowel wall and thus provide information on blood flow and inflammatory activity in the intestines of patients with Crohn's disease. This is currently being further investigated in a pivotal study (Euphoria, H2020) and could lead to the possibility of non-invasive assessment of disease activity in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in the future. The regional blood flow in the intestinal wall and the distribution of gastrointestinal blood flow are also subject to strong postprandial changes. During absorption of food components, blood flow increases sequentially in the respective sections of the gastrointestinal tract, leading to postprandial hyperemia. Because postprandial hyperemia is particularly regulated locally by the presence of dietary components, there is a relationship between the sequential increase in blood flow in the intestinal wall and the peristaltic transport of chyme through the gastrointestinal tract. Postprandial hyperemia could also lead to an increase in the optoacoustic hemoglobin signal of the intestinal wall and thus have an impact on the assessment of inflammatory activity in IBD using MSOT. Additionally, MSOT allows the identification of non-absorbable exogenous chromophores, such as indocyanine green (ICG), which could allow co-localization of the chyme in the intestinal lumen after oral application of ICG. This pilot study investigates whether postprandial blood flow changes can be quantitatively measured using MSOT and whether these changes occur simultaneously with the gastrointestinal passage of the chyme as measured by the ICG signal in the intestinal lumen.

Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) is a new diagnostic technique that allows microscopic examination of the digestive mucosa during ongoing endoscopy. Different types of tissue and diseases can be diagnosed immediately, and analysis of the in vivo microarchitecture is helpful to better target standard biopsies and reduce the number of biopsies required. CLE necessitates an intravenous injection of a fluorescent marker, e.g. fluorescein, to obtain 'optical biopsies' with a high level of magnification (up to 1000 fold). To date, more than 1000 endomicroscopy procedures have been performed in the world and different publications have shown the safety, feasibility and excellent diagnostic yield of CLE. No complication related to IV injection of fluorescein has been reported. However, all these data come from a very limited number of expert centres and need to be confirmed and validated at the multicenter level. The aims of this multicenter trial are: 1) to standardize CLE in all centres equipped in France, 2) to ensure the safety of intravenous fluorescein injection, 3) to test the diagnostic value of CLE in various conditions representative of the large spectrum of different cancerous and non-cancerous digestive diseases.

In December 2019, an outbreak of pneumonia associated with a novel coronavirus named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2) was reported in Wuhan city, China, and spread exponentially throughout China and other countries in the following weeks. It is recommended that elective endoscopies should be deferred during the COVID-19 outbreak for the potential transmission between patients and medical staff in the statements of Asian Pacific Society for Digestive Endoscopy (APSDE-COVID statements). Therefore, exploring an alternative for patients with the requirements of endoscopy during the outbreak is of great importance. Herein,the investigators developed an novel non-contact magnetically-controlled capsule endoscopy (Nc-MCE) system (Figure 1) adds a remote control workstation and a audio-visual exchange system to the original well-established MCE system. This study was a open-label, prospective, randomized controlled study approved by the institutional review board of Shanghai Changhai Hospital. It was designed to evaluate the diagnostic utility, safety, feasibility and patients acceptability of Nc-MCE in patients with an indication of endoscopy, and comparing it with the result of MCE.

With the combination of robotic and 5G network communication technology, telemedicine becomes more and more feasible and efficient. Magnetically controlled capsule endoscopy (MCE) has been confirmed to have comparable accuracy with conventional gastroscopy with the advantages of comfort and convenience. 5G communication technology has been applied to several fields in telemedicine, but its effectiveness, safety, and stability in remote magnetically controlled capsule endoscopy for upper gastrointestinal tract examination have not been established. The aim of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic utility, safety, feasibility and patient's acceptability of remote magnetically controlled capsule endoscopy system under 5G network.