Active clinical trials for "Carcinoma"

In this study, a score based on glycosaminoglycan (GAG) profiling in subjects with suspicion of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is hypothesized to distinguish malignant masses when early actionable clinical decisions are desirable. For example to diagnose early recurrence after surgical treatment; to screen population at risk of RCC; or to distinguish benign masses from RCC before surgical treatment. To this end, plasma and urine GAGs will be measured in a prospective cohort of patients referred to surgical treatment for RCC. The resulting GAG scores are then correlated to post-surgical recurrence, to post-surgical definitive diagnosis and and to tumor size if RCC. In a subset cohort of patients at high risk of RCC recurrence, plasma and urine GAGs will be monitored to observe its correlation with disease recurrence.

In this study it will be analyzed how often the sleep apnea syndrome can be observed in patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer with the help of ApneaLink device by ResMed.

This clinical trial studies whether screening methods used to diagnose cancer of the prostate, lung, colon, rectum, or ovaries can reduce deaths from these cancers. Screening tests may help doctors find cancer cells early and plan better treatment for colorectal cancer.

All Hepatocellular carcinoma and Renal cell carcinoma patients who receive molecular targeted therapy will be candidates for the study. No additional treatment or intervention will be conducted except for blood sampling that will be limited to one time only. Blood samples (10 cc in volume) will be collected from all study participants once they provided written informed consent form. DNA will be extracted from peripheral blood samples using DNA isolation kit.

The objective of this study is to characterize genes associated either with susceptibility or resistance to the development nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in a Chinese population where the incidence of NPC is as high as 50 in 100,000. NPC has been and remains a unique model of human malignancy for understanding a multi-step carcinogenic process involving a ubiquitous virus (Epstein-Barr virus), environmental carcinogens, and an NPC susceptibility gene. Up to 95% of all NPC patients at early or late stage of the disease have IgA antibodies directed to the EBV virus VCA (viral capsid antigen). Environmental factors have also been implicated as significant risk factors in the development of NPC. In addition, certain alleles in HLA genes have shown associations with NPC, perhaps in concert with a family of T-cell receptor genes (TCR). Other data suggest that a microsatellite marker on Chromosome 6 may be associated with an NPC-disease associated gene.

The purpose of this study is to registrate long time clinical and histological treatment response of basal cell carcinoma (BCC) lesions treated with one or two procedures of dimethylsulfoxide supported 5-aminolaevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (DMSO-PDT).

The purpose of this study is to compare and evaluate the diagnostic performance of scrape cytology using two different cytological staining techniques, and to evaluate additional touch imprint cytology with that of histopathology of superficial basal cell carcinoma and actinic keratosis.

Human thyroglobulin (Tg) is the most sensitive biochemical marker for recurrence of differentiated cancer (DTC), especially after the complete removal of thyroid tissue through surgery and radioiodine therapy (RIT). Unfortunately, current assays for measuring Tg in blood samples are not sensitive enough to reliably measure Tg while patients are under thyroid hormone replacement therapy. Instead patients have to withdraw thyroid hormone for several weeks or receive costly injections of recombinant thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) in order to raise Tg production by thyroid remnant and/or thyroid cancer cells so that it can be measured by current Tg assays. Other patients have antibodies against Tg that interfere in current immunoassays. The purpose of the study was to characterize a new highly sensitive assay for measuring Tg in the serum in thyroid cancer patients both on thyroid hormone therapy and off therapy in comparison to the normal routine assay already in use at Münster University Hospital.

Early stage HCC is treated by curative surgical resection or by local ablation (such as radio-frequency) as the current standard of care. The complete removal of clinical visible HCC is then confirmed by imaging by MRI or CT, or by a decline of tumor marker (AFP or PIVKA). However, despite an apparent complete removal of the HCC, those post-curative patients frequently develop tumor recurrence at a rate ranging 10-50% within the first year. The high rate of early HCC recurrence indicated a minimal residual HCC after the curative therapies in a significant proportion of patients. A better and more specific biomarker for detecting the residual HCC will improve the patients' prognosis prediction and therapeutic plan. To detect the minimal residual HCC, a biomarker unique to the tumor is needed. Currently, the cell-free circulating DNA carrying tumor-specific somatic mutations has been advocated as a promising one. It has been applied to investigate the tumor responses or resistances to cancer therapy. However, currently it is restricted to detect or follow only large advanced cancer, because of the difficulty in separating or enriching the cfDNA with tumor-specific mutations from the cfDNA from normal cells. In this project, the investigators proposed that one class of somatic mutation in HBV-related HCC, namely the insertion mutagenesis by integrated HBV DNA, could be adopted to circumvent this difficulty. HBV DNA integration has been found in the chromosomes of about 90% of HBV-related HCC and the integration site is unique to individual HCC. The HBV-host junction DNA fragment from one HCC is therefore a tumor-specific biomarker. Such fragments can be released into the circulation as cell-free circulating DNAs, and the detection of the HBV-host chimera DNAs in the circulation is a reliable evidence for the presence of the tumor in the patient. Therefore the cf circulating HBV-host chimera DNA is proposed to assay any minimal residual HCC after curative therapies.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent primary tumour of the liver and is the third cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Depending on the stage of the disease, the treatment options are surgery, liver transplantation, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Recently, scientific research has focused on small molecules called microRNAs which are produced by human cells and can be released in the blood. They have a role in cell proliferation and are found to be dysregulated in different types of cancer. It has been shown that microRNAs have a role in the development of HCC but it is unknown if these molecules can be used as markers for diagnosis and survival in HCC. In particular, microRNAs miR-221 and miR-222 are dysregulated in the tumoral tissues in about 80% of patients with HCC. This can be assessed on tissues from liver biopsies or surgical specimens, both invasive approaches. Only few studies showed the presence of microRNAs in the blood of patients with HCC but it is unknown if there is a correlation between tumoral tissue expression and circulating levels. The aim of this study is to evaluate if these two microRNAs are expressed not only in the tumoral tissues but also in the blood from cancer patients, and in different amounts compared to circulating levels in healthy individuals. A correlation between tumoral tissue and blood levels will also be evaluated. Should this evaluation show a strong correlation and reliability of circulating microRNAs in the diagnosis and follow up of HCC, future clinical trials targeting these microRNAs and their related pathways might benefit from this being adopted as conventional practice instead of the need of assessing tissue levels from liver biopsies. The results of this pilot study will bring preliminary results as a first step for future analysis on a larger cohort of patients.