Active clinical trials for "Rare Diseases"

This study aims to explore the longitudinal incidence and prevalence trends of selected muscular and bone-related rare diseases, i.e., Familial Amyloidotic Polyneuropathy (FAP), Primary hyperoxaluria, Wilson's disease, Cystic fibrosis, Osteogenesis imperfecta, Porphyria, and Primary Paget disease, and analyze healthcare utilization.

The purpose of this study is to identify the biochemical/genetic defects in erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP). People with EPP have skin sensitivity to sunlight and occasionally develop liver disease. In this study, the investigators hope to learn the nature of the biochemical/genetic defects in EPP because this may help explain the severity of these clinical features.

The birth of a child with a disorder of sex development (DSD) is stressful for parents and members of the healthcare team. The "right" decisions about gender assignment (is it a boy? a girl?) and the best course of action (e.g., should there be surgery? what kind? when?) are not obvious. While there have been large advances in diagnostic assessments like genetic and endocrine testing, the tests do not always show what caused the DSD. And, even when the tests do reveal an explanation for the DSD, knowing what happened genetically or hormonally does not usually lead to a single "correct" treatment plan. Instead, it is likely that there are different acceptable treatment options - and parents will need to make decisions based, in part, on their personal preferences, values, and cultural background. Adding more stress to the situation is knowledge that many of the decisions that need to be made by parents early in a child's life are irreversible and exert life-long consequences for the child and the family. To support parents becoming actively involved in making such decisions, and to reduce the likelihood of future worry and regret about decisions that have been made, the investigators will create a decision support tool (DST). The DST will help educate families about typical and atypical sex development of the body, the process by which DSD are diagnosed (especially how to interpret genetic test results), and possible relationships between diagnostic/genetic testing, decisions about care, and known consequences of those decisions on their child and entire family. The DST will be used by parents of young children together with their child's health care provider. The investigators will bring together a network of researchers, health care providers, representatives of patient support and advocacy organizations, and parents of children with DSD to share their experiences. Participants of this network will be involved at each stage of creating the DST, revising it, and putting it into practice. At the end of this project, the investigators will have a fully formed DST that will be available for parents to use with their child's healthcare team as they are first learning their child may have a DSD.

This study is based on the study of the natural history of a rare disorder: the Bardet-Biedl syndrome (BBS) (which is associated with retinitis pigmentosa, polydactyly, cognitive impairment, obesity, and kidney failure). The clinical, biological, and radiological features of adult patients are studied. In parallel, a molecular study is performed on the known genes to date (8 genes from BBS1 to BBS8) and to identify new genes involved. The parts of the study are combined in a phenotype-genotype correlation study.

The purpose of this study is to improve the understanding of the treatment goals that a person with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) or the caregiver may be most interested in, based on the severity of the person's disease. Data will be collected by online survey when the participant accepts the study invitation ("RSVP questionnaire") and telephone interview on the functional burden and self-identified treatment goals from the perspective of people with DMD and their caregivers. Interviews will be analyzed to help identify things important to Duchenne families to measure in clinical trials and to inform the selection of key concepts of interest and development of future clinical outcome measures, including observer reported outcomes/patient reported outcomes. The study will be conducted in the United States and will enroll between 45 and 120 participants 11 years or older living with DMD as well as their caregivers. The time commitment for the online survey and the telephone interview is about one hour. It is anticipated that the entire study will be completed within one year.

Background Women with rare diseases resulting in motor disabilities wishing to become mother face a major challenge. The investigators hypothesize that provided with adequate support, they are able to achieve a successful pregnancy and to offer their child a safe family environment. Methods To test this hypothesis, the investigators shall conduct a prospective observational prospective survey of a consecutive series of volunteer pregnant women or mothers of children less than 14 months, with motor impairment, participating in a program of parenting support developed in our institution. Primary outcome: social environment, child development, mother-infant attachment, mother- infant interactions Secondary outcome: social and demographic characteristics, severity of motor impairment, associated impairment, perinatal morbidity for the mother and the infant (composite indicator), emotional status, and the needs expressed by women regarding the level of medical or social care. Analysis The investigators shall describe the distribution of the primary outcome measurements in the subgroup of women with motor impairment related to a rare disease. The investigators shall compare this distribution to the expected distribution in the general population, and to that observed in women with motor impairment unrelated to a rare disease. The investigators shall also study primary outcome measurements as a function of the severity of maternal disability, of the mother's social characteristics and emotional status. The investigators shall also describe the distribution the distribution of perinatal morbidity globally, and as a function of the potential explanatory variables mentioned above. The investigators shall also report on the opinion of women regarding the support they were offered so far, and the support they declare they should benefit from.

In people suffering from a rare disease the diagnostic process and the confirmation of a final diagnosis is often ongoing for many years. Factors contributing to delayed diagnosis include the limited knowledge of health care professionals about rare diseases and their symptoms but also a psychiatric or psychosomatic (co-)morbidity obscuring the symptoms of the rare disease. The project ZSE-DUO will evaluate whether a combination of an expert in somatic medicine and a psychiatric/psychosomatic specialist will increase the rate of assured diagnoses in patients approaching a center of rare diseases (primary outcome), accelerate the process until a diagnosis is made, reduce the costs of diagnosing a patient, and lead to a higher satisfaction of patients and health care professionals. Furthermore, the project will evaluate whether the use of psychosomatic screening tools at registration of a patient in a center for rare diseases will help to guide the diagnostic process. Two cohorts of 682 patients each will be sequentially recruited over 9 plus 9 months: the Control group cohort (CG based on somatic expertise) and the Experimental group cohort (EG combined psychosomatic/somatic expertise Included will be persons from the age of at least 12 years presenting with symptoms and signs which are not explained by current diagnoses (as judged by the patient's primary care physician and a specialized physician at the center for rare diseases ZSE evaluating the medical records). Patients will be recruited from 11 German Centers for Rare Diseases associated with University hospitals in the cities of Aachen, Bochum, Frankfurt, Hannover, Magdeburg, Mainz, Münster, Regensburg, Tübingen, Ulm and Würzburg. Recruitment will be supported by a collaboration with the German patient organization representing many rare disease organizations ACHSE e.V. and a collaboration with the insurance companies Techniker Krankenkasse, IKK gesund plus and AOK Hessen who also provide data on costs of care. Data collection and analysis will be coordinated and performed by the Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Biometry at the University of Würzburg, the Institute for Epidemiology, Social Medicine and Science of Health Care Systems in Hannover, and the Department of Medical Psychology in Hamburg. The project is funded by the Innovationsfond of the Federal Joint Committee in Germany.

Fabry Disease (FD) is a rare, X-linked lysosomal storage disorder leading to left ventricular hypertrophy, myocardial fibrosis, arrhythmia and heart failure. Cardiac involvement is the leading cause of death in FD. Treatment with enzyme replacement therapy is expensive, may be poorly targeted and there are difficulties in early detection and disease monitoring. T1 mapping signal change is a potential remarkable biomarker for FD. Fabry400 is a multicentre study aiming to understand the biology of Fabry Disease and its relationship to non-invasive multi parametric mapping by CMR.

30 months, multicentre, prospective observational study on adult (>18 years) patients with a diagnosis of rare and complex connective tissue diseases (rCTDs) who will be given the vaccine during the period from January 2021 and January 2022. Patients with the following diagnosis will be included: antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (IIM), IgG4-related disease (IgG4), mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD), relapsing polychondritis (RP), Sjogren's syndrome (SS), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc) undifferentiated connective tissue disease (UCTD)

This study will help the investigator understand the pathogenesis of different rare genetic conditions and to establish database of rare genetic databases. This would ultimately help to provide more accurate diagnosis through advanced genomic diagnostic testing and databases established from this study. This knowledge would in turn help in the clinical management of other affected family members and other individuals affected with similar conditions. Understanding of pathogenesis of the disease would also enable the investigator to develop targeted therapies for rare genetic diseases, and also to collaborate on the targeted therapy-related clinical trials. The investigator plans to store the results of this study in databases. These results will be shared with other researchers or doctors, who research, diagnose or treat the individuals with similar diseases. The investigator will only share the data that is collected and not the biological samples.