Active clinical trials for "Communicable Diseases"

The study aims to evaluate a deescalating therapeutic strategy (switch the carbapenem to another beta-lactam for which the isolated pathogen is susceptible) in patients with well-defined ESBL-PE infections (usual sites of infections and non severe infections).

Cryptococcal meningitis or "Crypto" is a life threatening fungal infection around the brain that requires hospitalization for treatment for 14 days and then continued therapy. Crypto causes 15-20% of HIV/AIDS-related deaths worldwide. However, this infection can be detected before one develops symptoms and becomes ill. People can be screened for infection by a blood test to detect "cryptococcal antigen," (called CrAg), which is part of the fungus, in blood. The World Health Organization and over 22 countries worldwide recommend CrAg screening of all persons with advanced AIDS entering or re-entering into HIV care. However, it is not known how best to treat people with cryptococcal antigen in their blood, who don't otherwise yet have symptoms of infection around their brain. If no treatment is given, almost all people will develop infection of the brain and/or die. International guidelines suggest using both HIV medicines and an anti-fungal medicine, called fluconazole, to treat this early infection. However, despite this treatment approximately 1 in 4 people may get sick and/or die. Researchers have recently discovered another medicine that may work against the Cryptococcus fungus. This medicine is called Sertraline, and it is actually a medicine that has been used for more than 25 years to treat depression (sadness). Sertraline is one of the most commonly used medicines worldwide. The purpose of this research clinical trial is to determine if standard fluconazole antifungal therapy plus a high dose of Sertraline, will be better than standard fluconazole therapy alone for treating early disseminated cryptococcal infection in persons who are asymptomatic and do not yet have infection of the brain (i.e. meningitis). This study seeks to test if Sertraline will improve survival through 6-months. Prior studies have shown that >90% of those who survive 6-months will survive >5 years.

This is a randomized, open label, comparative, Phase II study to determine which dose of fecal microbiota transplant using Penn Microbiome Therapy (PMT) products is most effective in treating and preventing recurrence of Clostridium difficile infection (C diff).

A study to evaluate the efficacy of inhaled molgramostim administered open-label to adult cystic fibrosis (CF) subjects with chronic pulmonary nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) infection, with or without ongoing antimycobacterial guideline based combination therapy.

This is a randomized, open label, comparative, Phase II study to determine whether fecal microbiota transplant using Penn Microbiome Therapy products helps standard therapy to treat severe Clostridium difficile infection (C diff).

This is a phase I/II trial designed to evaluate bacteriophage therapy in patients with urinary tract infections.

This study explores whether patients acutely hospitalized may have shorter hospitalization and fewer admittances at Intensive Care Units by treatment with azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine.

We hypothesize that inhaled steroid therapy and long acting beta 2 adrenergic agonist, widely prescribed in asthma patients, may also have a local protective effect against coronavirus infection, even in patients without asthma. The primary purpose is To compare time to clinical improvement in patients receiving standard of care associated to the combination budesonide/formoterol or standard of care only. Time (in days) to clinical improvement is defined as the time from randomization to an improvement of two points (from the status at randomization) on a seven-category ordinal scale or live discharge from the hospital, whichever came first within 30 days.

The clinical courses of COVID-19 in children are reportedly mild, and may therefore readily escape diagnosis. Prolonged intestinal virus shedding has been reported in children, thus rendering the pediatric population a potentially important source of virus transmission. However, the infectious potential of SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2) excreted in the stool has remained enigmatic. The investigators hypothesize that stools carrying the virus can represent a source of infection, at least in a proportion of instances, and therefore intend to screen stools of children admitted to the hospital regardless of the indication in order to assess the frequency of intestinal virus excretion. The screening will be performed by validated RTQ-PCR (reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction) assays. In positive cases, stool extracts will be used to inoculate permissive cells (e.g. VeroE6) under BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) conditions, and the infectious potential of the viruses will be determined. The readout will be based on the assessment of cell cytopathic effects and on the expression of subgenomic mRNA. it is expected to recruit ~100 patients for the study. Additionally, the investigators will specifically examine children admitted to the hospital because of COVID-19, and will determine the temporal correlation between viral loads in the upper respiratory tract (URT) and serial stool specimens as well as swabs from the palms and from the oral cavity using RTQ-PCR. Longitudinal studies on the infectious potential of viruses from the URT and stool will be performed using the experimental approach outlined above. For this part of the study, is is intended to recruit ~100 children. Furthermore, samples derived from >200 patients from our biorepository will be used. The insights gained from the study will greatly expand the knowledge on the epidemiological and clinical significance of SARS-CoV-2 infections in children. If stools are identified as a potential source of infection, the data will have an important impact on safety measures in specific settings such as the kindergarten.

This study is designed to test the efficacy and safety of combinations of two well-understood agents - famotidine and celecoxib. Each of these agents separately demonstrate clinical activity in mitigating COVID-19 disease symptoms or severity, and each of which appear to have separate and complementary mechanisms of action.