Active clinical trials for "Multiple System Atrophy"

This is a human clinical study involving the isolation of autologous bone marrow derived stem cells (BMSC) and transfer to the vascular system and inferior 1/3 of the nasal passages in order to determine if such a treatment will provide improvement in neurologic function for patients with certain neurologic conditions. http://mdstemcells.com/nest/

This home-based study is a randomized (1:1) placebo-controlled trial of a single infusion of zoledronic acid-5 mg (ZA) for the prevention of fractures in men and women aged 60 years and older with Parkinson's disease and parkinsonism with at least 2 years of follow-up. A total of 3500 participants will be enrolled and randomized in the United States. Participants, follow-up outcome assessors, and study investigators will be blinded to assigned study treatment. This trial is funded by the National Institute of Aging.

Patients with atypical parkinsonism often show gait and mobility impairment manifesting in early disease stages. In order to maintain mobility and physical autonomy as long as possible for these patients, we will examine the effect of two types of physiotherapy in patients with multiple system atrophy (MSA), progressive supranuclear gaze palsy (PSP) and idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD). The study is divided into an ambulant daily in-patient physiotherapy phase, followed by a home-based training phase. At the beginning and the end of the study, the patients daily activity will be recorded for one week using Physical Activity Monitoring (PAM) sensors. The aim of this double-blind, randomized-controlled study is to determine effective physiotherapy in patients with atypical parkinsonian syndromes in order to maintain mobility for as long as possible.

This is a Phase 1b study to determine the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of UB-312 in participants with multiple system atrophy (MSA), and in participants with Parkinson's disease (PD). UB-312 is a UBITh®-enhanced synthetic peptide-based vaccine and may provide an active immunotherapy option for treating synucleinopathies including the most prevalent form, PD; and the most rapidly progressive form, MSA.

The Swedish BioFINDER 2 study is a new study that will launch in 2017 and extends the previous cohorts of BioFINDER 1 study (www.biofinder.se). BioFINDER 1 is used e.g. to characterize the role of beta-amyloid pathology in early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using amyloid-PET (18F-Flutemetamol) and Aβ analysis in cerebrospinal fluid samples. The BioFINDER 1 study has resulted in more than 40 publications during the last three years, many in high impact journals, and some the of the results have already had important implications for the diagnostic work-up patients with AD in the clinical routine practice. The original BioFINDER 1 cohort started to include participants in 2008. Since then there has been a rapid development of biochemical and neuroimaging technologies which enable novel ways to the study biological processes involved in Alzheimer's disease in living people. There has also been a growing interest in the earliest stages of AD and other neurodegenerative diseases. With the advent of new tau-PET tracers there is now an opportunity to elucidate the role of tau pathology in the pathogenesis of AD and other tauopathies. The Swedish BioFINDER 2 study has been designed to complement the BioFINDER 1 study and to e.g. address issues regarding the role of tau pathology in different dementias and in preclinical stages of different dementia diseases. Further, the clinical assessments and MRI methods have been further optimized compared to BioFINDER 1.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a procedure that has been shown to improve fatigue in chronic sufferers. It uses a plastic covered coil that sends a magnetic pulse through the skull into the brain and by targeting particular areas in the brain it can be used to help modulate the perception of fatigue. The study intends to use this technique to treat such a disabling symptom in patients who suffer from Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). Initially the aim is to study this technique in 22 MSA patients who are suffering from fatigue . These patients would require an resting-state funtional MRI before and after the stimulation. The stimulation would be performed ten sessions and the patients would be assessed by a clinician using well recognized clinical tools. It is anticipated that there will be a meaningful improvement in fatigue. It is also anticipated that TMS is a safety technique to use in MSA patients . Our findings will revealed that fatigue may be associated with an altered default mode network and sensorimotor network connectivity in MSA patients. We hypothesize that these divergent motor and cognitive networks connectivity changes and their adaptive or maladaptive functional outcome may play a prominent role in the pathophysiology of fatigue in MSA.

Study Rationale: No accurate tests currently exist to diagnose Parkinson's disease (PD) and the conditions which mimic it (atypical parkinsonism) at a very early stage. Similarly there are no accurate ways to track how these diseases progress in a very precise manner. Recording eye movements and pupils may be a very sensitive way of doing this and may contain important information about a patient's diagnosis and their cognitive and motor function. Hypothesis: We hypothesize that measuring eye movements and pupil changes while people watch short video clips will differentiate PD and atypical parkinsonism at an early stage. We hypothesize that eye movements and pupil changes will be able to track how a person's disease changes over time and could even predict their disease course from the start. Before we can do this, we need to be able to accurately differentiate between PD and atypical parkinsonism and see how eye movements vary among people with the same disease. Study Design: We will ask a large number of people with PD and atypical parkinsonism to watch very brief video clips while we record eye movements and pupil responses. This is like changing the television channel every few seconds and observing what happens to a person's eyes as they search the new clip. We will compare these results between different disease groups and correlate them with clinical features of PD and atypical parkinsonism. Impact on Diagnosis/Treatment of Parkinson's disease: This may have enormous impact in the assessment of people with PD. It may become an important diagnostic tool, a prognostic marker at the early stage of disease, as well as providing the ability to track disease progression in clinical trials. Next Steps for Development: Once we can demonstrate that eye tracking can differentiate these conditions, we will follow a large number of patients to see how their eye movements and pupils change over time with their disease. If this is a reliable way to track disease it could be used to measure disease progression in these conditions and response to treatment.

The overall goal of this protocol is to: Evaluate [18F]UCB-2897 as an α-synuclein targeted radiopharmaceutical. The primary objective is: • Confirm a specific α -synuclein signal with [18F]UCB-2897 in participants with PD and/or MSA relative to healthy volunteers Secondary and exploratory objectives are: Determine the safety and tolerability of microdose [18F]UCB-2897 Evaluate preliminary dosimetry of [18F]UCB-2897 Additional exploratory objectives are: Determine the pharmacokinetics / metabolism of [18F]UCB-2897 Determine the optimal imaging protocol for [18F]UCB-2897

The goal of this clinical study is to evaluate the effects of a personalized symptomatic treatment plan integrated with monthly telemedicine and mobile palliative care interventions on a population of individuals diagnosed with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) and their informal caregivers. The aim is to improve the quality of life of MSA patients and their caregivers, as well as provide them with better support during the disease progression. After a baseline visit, all 46 patients will receive a personalized therapeutic plan (including medical treatment, physiotherapy, logotherapy and occupational therapy excercises and psychological support) and contact with social workers and a palliative care team. They willl then be re-evaluated at 6-,12-, 18- month visits. Semi-structured online interviews at baseline and 12 month visit will collect patients' individual healthcare preferences, which will be taken into account in the preparation of the individual therapeutic plan. Twenty-three patients will be randomized to receive monthly telemedicine visits. Assessment of patients´satisfaction with the therapeutic plan, with the palliative interventions (when they occurred) and the telemedicine visits will be carried over the 18 month period. Forty-six informal caregivers will be invited to participate with semi-structured online interviews and assessment of their QoL and caregivers' burden.

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a rare and fatal neurodegenerative disorder. The pathologic hallmark is the accumulation of aggregated alpha-synuclein in oligodendrocytes forming glial cytoplasmic inclusions. Some symptomatic treatments are available while disease-modification remains an unmet treatment need. Post-mortem findings suggest insulin resistance, i.e. reduced insulin signaling, in the brains of MSA patients. The aim of this study is to complete the target validation of insulin resistance for future treatment trials.