Active clinical trials for "Fibrosis"

In this study we analyzed the overall survival for all newly diagnosed patients with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis from June 2006 onwards. The investigators wanted to confirm the known risk factors such as age, gender, smoking history and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and evaluate the impact on survival of etiology, number of different bacteriological species in retrospective and prospective sputa, azithromycin use and presence/development of pulmonary hypertension.

Non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis patients (and controls) were recruited for the study. The investigators' aim was to study the relevance of clinical parameters in terms of underlying disease severity, proteolysis and inflammation in a diverse non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis population.

To understand current practices of pulmonary physicians in relation to Advanced Care Planning (ACP) in order to develop future disease-specific tools that will improve patient-physician communication about ACP.

To provide early access and to evaluate the safety and tolerability of nintedanib in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).

The overall aim of this study is to develop a test that predicts the prognosis of IPF (Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis) and which could be used to determine whether new treatments for IPF are likely to work.

Estimation of functional liver reserve in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in cirrhosis is of paramount importance to properly select candidates for surgical resection. Together with the value of bilirubin, the presence/absence of ascites and esophageal varices, and the rate of residual liver volume, which are our current parameters to measure functional liver reserve, the investigators sought to investigate the value of preoperative cholinesterases (CHE) in predict postoperative adverse outcome after hepatic resection for HCC.

The goal of this study is to identify the immunological factors that influence a patient's response to the presence of the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus) in the lungs. In patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), this fungus is not known to cause damage to the lungs, but some patients respond with an allergic reaction that may cause wheeze, cough, or difficulty breathing. Approximately 230 patients will be enrolled with an additional 60 people who do not have CF and who do not have a history of asthma to serve as a comparison group.

The purpose of this study is to identify all the bacterial species present in the respiratory tracts of patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF), and to connect them with clinical information. Traditional culture methods of throat swab and sputum samples can only identify the most prevalent bacteria in samples, those of which there are over about 5 million bacteria per teaspoon. A recently developed method has been found to be more sensitive and can detect up to several hundred bacterial species in throat swab or sputum sample of individual CF patients.

Pulmonary infections are the major cause of mortality and morbidity in cystic fibrosis (CF); patients frequently have to take antibiotics which often cannot be given orally or by aerosol but have to be administered intravenously. In order to reduce the number of venepunctures, totally implanted venous access devices (TIVAD) or Ports have been used to administer antibiotics and other infusions. The use of Port systems has been increasing in recent years, especially for those patients requiring frequent intravenous treatments. Having a TIVAD in place makes venous access quicker and also reduces trauma, suffering and pain. However, there are important complications associated with TIVADs which can be early (pneumothorax, arterial puncture, severe bruising) or late (infections, thromboembolic complications and occlusion). Although the use of TIVADs in CF is increasing, there is little CF-specific literature available on the epidemiology and risk of TIVAD complications. Also, literature is scarce about clinical criteria for deciding to insert a TIVAD. Therefore, so far clinical decisions were based mainly on experiences of TIVAD use in other diseases, such as cancer. With this prospective observational study we will survey a large population of Italian CF people with TIVAD in order to: collect data about current clinical conditions of CF people with TIVAD; investigate about clinical criteria that led to the decision of positioning a TIVAD; observe the possible onset of late complications.

In patients with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) the clinical course of lung disease is crucial for individual prognosis and life expectancy. Imaging modalities are important in the assessment of follow up of structural lung changes and monitoring of pulmonary complications in CF. Although high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) is the accepted gold standard for evaluation of morphological lung changes in CF, chest-X-ray is widely used as standard imaging procedure for assessment and follow up in these young patients due to less radiation exposure. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has not been used for lung imaging in CF so far. Studies from the 80's and early 90's were not able to show any impact for the use of MRI in CF. Due to recent technical developments MRI of the lung became possible. Our study group was able to show that MRI is a competitive imaging modality for evaluating changes of the CF-lung in comparison to the gold standard (HRCT). So far only patients from the age of 6-7 years were examined. According to recent studies CF is a disease which starts in utero. Therefore it can lead to extensive pulmonary changes even in infants and young children. In this age group lung function testing is difficult and not broadly available. An early optimized therapy is crucial for the long term course and outcome of the pulmonary disease. The aim of this study is to evaluate morphological and functional MRI for early diagnosis of lung changes in children (0-6 years) with CF.