A Clinical Research on Disease Progression and Intervention of Chronic HepatitisB
Hepatitis BChronicHBV(hepatitis B virus) with metabolic comorbidities may accelerate liver disease progression and increase the risk of HCC(Hepatocellular Carcinoma)development. It is reported combination of metabolic diseases and CHB is associated with substantially increased rates of liver cirrhosis and secondary liver-related events compared to CHB alone. Consequently, hepatitis B patients with metabolic comorbidities warrant particular attention in disease surveillance and evaluation of treatment indications.
Micro RNA-122 and the Clinical Course of Patients With Chronic Hepatitis C
Hepatitis CCombination therapy with peginterferon plus ribavirin has become the current standard of care for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients, with an overall sustained virologic response (SVR) rate of 54-63%. Based on the ample evidence, a 48-week course of peginterferon plus weight-based ribavirin therapy is widely recommended to treat HCV genotype 1 infection in different parts of the world. Despite the increased SVR rates with the improved medical therapies, about 25-50% and 10-20% of HCV genotype 1 and HCV genotype 2/3 patients may experience relapse after the cessation of therapy with undetectable HCV viremia at the end of treatment. Moreover, combination therapy is costly and may cause various adverse events. Therefore, individualized therapy based on outcome analysis should be adopted to save medical cost as well as to lessen inadequate treatment. Few studies are aimed to evaluate the host responses of micro RNA regulation during interferon-based therapy and its relationships to the overall treatment responses. Micro RNA (miRNA) is a single-stand RNA composed of 21-23 nucleotides, which may regulate the function of messenger RNA (mRNA). The regulating mechanisms involving micro RNA between the hosts and the HCV virus include (1) auto-regulation of HCV mRNA by HCV miRNA; (2) regulation of host mRNA by HCV miRNA; and (3) regulation of HCV mRNA by host miRNA. MiR-122 is the abundant liver-specific miRNA which is crucial for efficient HCV replication in culture Huh7 cells stably expressing HCV replicons. Recently, an in vivo study for hepatic miR-122 of 42 patients with CHC who received IFN-based therapy showed that patients who did not respond to IFN therapy had markedly decreased pretreatment miR-122 levels. Although miR-122 is abundant in the liver, liver biopsy is still considered an invasive procedure, which prevents its widespread use in routine clinical practice. The miRNA can be detected in the sera and is stable after 24 hours of room temperature store or repeated freezing and de-freezing. The serum miR-122 levels can reflect the severity of liver injuries in a rat acetaminophen toxicity model. Because miR-122 is liver specific and the miRNA is stable in the sera, the investigators aimed to evaluate the role of serum and hepatic miR-122 on the viral kinetics and the treatment responses and in HCV patients receiving peginterferon and ribavirin combination therapy.
Respiratory Support in Severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Exacerbation
COPD ExacerbationPreliminary studies have shown that NPPV can avoid tracheal intubation in 40% to 60% patients who have severe exacerbation of COPD. Recently, large-scale comparative effectiveness research (CER) also found that compared with invasive ventilation, NPPV can reduce mortality rates. But there's no high-quality clinical studies which can confirm this. Therefore, investigators believe that NPPV can avoid intubation in patients with severe exacerbation of COPD in ICU with perfect monitoring conditions and reasonable human resource allocation, in order to reduce IMV-related complications and improve patients' outcomes.
Real-world Analysis of Workup at Disease Progression and Implementation of Osimertinib for EGFR+...
EGFR Positive Non-small Cell Lung CancerTyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) have greatly improved prognosis of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with tumor responses in the majority of cases and a median overall survival currently exceeding 2.5 years. However, clinical courses vary widely and eventual treatment failure is inevitable. The most common resistance mechanism against first- and second-generation EGFR inhibitors is the EGFR T790M mutation, which emerges in about 50% of cases and is amenable to next-line treatment with the third-generation compound osimertinib. However, experience in everyday clinical practice shows that implementation of EGFR TKI sequencing is often problematic, for example because a considerable number of EGFR+ NSCLC patients failing first- and second-generation EGFR inhibitors do not undergo T790M mutation testing at the time of disease progression. This study will use patient records to analyze the clinical course of EGFR+ NSCLC patients treated with first- and second-generation EGFR inhibitors at the Thoraxklinik Heidelberg (Germany) during the past years. The main aim is to analyze the diagnostic and therapeutic measures, including implementation of osimertinib, taken at the time of disease progression as well as their effect on patient outcome in a real-world, routine clinical setting.
Disease Progression and Treatment-induced Alterations in Glioblastoma
Brain TumorSummary of scientific evidence and rationale of this project: Integrative molecular-genetic approaches have provided important insights in the biology of glioblastoma. It has meanwhile become clear, that glioblastoma is not a single tumor entity but comprises different molecular subtypes, which are associated with a distinct genetic/epigenetic signature and prognosis. Multimodal treatment approaches combining radio- and chemotherapy as well as the recent introduction of novel antiangiogenic agents have resulted in increasing survival times and improved quality-of-life of glioblastoma patients. Yet, despite these intense treatment efforts the therapeutic efficacy in glioblastoma patients is limited, leading in virtually all cases to tumor recurrence and death of the patients. As only a limited fraction of glioblastoma patients undergo second neurosurgery at tumor recurrence (< 10%), post-therapeutic samples are rare and no systematic, large-scale studies exist, which address post-therapeutic morphological and molecular alterations in glioblastoma tumor tissue. Yet, these data would help to improve the understanding of mechanisms involved in therapy-resistance and tumor progression, to develop new therapeutic approaches and could pave the way for personalized treatment strategies.
Progression of Coronary Atherosclerosis in Asymptomatic Diabetic Subjects
Type 2 DiabetesCoronary Artery DiseaseThe purpose of the study is to identify a sub-group of diabetic patients at higher risk of progression of coronary disease and also more likely to suffer from heart attack/angina and heart failure. The total number of patients to be recruited in this study will be 250 with type-2 diabetes but no known heart disease. These patients will have an objective measure of the function of the lining of the arteries, CT scan of the arteries of the heart and an ultrasound scan of the heart and arteries of the neck done at baseline along with blood tests for identification new markers of malfunction of the lining and inflammation of the arteries. Patients will be followed up at 18 months. During the follow-up visit, in addition to the blood tests, the CT scan of the heart arteries and ultrasound of the heart and arteries of the neck will be repeated to assess progression of the non-calcified, calcified and mixed plaques in the coronary arteries.
Identification of Parameters in rapId-proGression Subgroup Patients With Moderate Aortic Stenosis...
Aortic StenosisThe investigators aim to identify all clinical, biological, echo and imagistic parameters that predispose to increased progression rates in a prospective observational trial which will include ONLY patients with moderate AS, with the complete cardiological investigational tools provided in 2012. Once those parameters are found, medical and interventional treatment could be implemented to decrease the mortality rates.
Sequential Changes of Serum KL-6 Predict Progression in Interstitial Lung Disease
Interstitial Lung DiseaseDesquamativeInterstitial lung disease is a chronic progressive fibrosis lung disease that with a highly variable clinical process.thence it is significant for the patient to search a convenient and accurate prediction method. The objective of this study was to determine whether peripheral blood biomarkers can predict disease .
Volatolom Variation in Severe COPD During Hospitalization for Exacerbation and After Hospitalization...
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ExacerbationChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a public health issue due to its prevalence of 8% in the general population (although it is underestimated), particularly due to the number of severe patients suffering from chronic respiratory failure and the number of hospitalizations estimated at 100,000 each year. Total health insurance expenditure in 2017 for chronic respiratory diseases (excluding cystic fibrosis and cancers) was approximately €3.5 billion, including €1 billion for hospitalizations. Hospitalizations are mainly related to a worsening of the disease (severe exacerbations mainly of viral and/or bacterial origin). Although the majority of exacerbations are treated on an outpatient basis with antibiotics and/or oral corticosteroids, those occurring in the most severe and often the oldest patients may require hospitalization. It should be noted that almost one out of two patients hospitalized for COPD exacerbation is re-hospitalized within six months; on the other hand, age and length of stay are the two main factors of mortality in the year following hospitalization for COPD in the Intensive Care Unit. Early detection of a worsening of the health status related to COPD could allow appropriate management and avoid at least part of the hospitalizations for exacerbation with a consequent reduction of the associated morbi-mortality. The objective of this clinical study is to determine the evolution of the profile of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in the exhaled air (volatolom) in patients with severe COPD after hospitalization for exacerbation. This step should allow the identification of VOCs (modification of the volatolom) which would be associated with a severe COPD exacerbation, by comparing the volatolom at the acute phase of the exacerbation to the volatoloms during the progressive return to a stable state after hospitalization and to those of patients with a stabilized severe COPD (VOC-BPCO clinical study also sponsored by Foch Hospital)
Predictors of COVID-19 Infection and Disease Progression
Positive COVID-19 by PCRClinical Picture: Symptomatic COVID-19 presents with a recognizable clinical syndrome that is predictable prior to testing. Clinical judgement remains important, particularly when interpreting negative test results; 2. Biomarkers Associated with COVID-19 Patients: The most common laboratory features reported in patients with COVID-19