Active clinical trials for "Reperfusion Injury"

Ventricular fibrillation (VF)-related sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a leading cause of mortality. Patients may survive with neurological damage despite state-of-the-art treatment. Current biological and imaging parameters show significant limitations on early predicting cerebral performance at hospital admission. A spectral-based model was recently suggested to correlate time-dependent VF spectral changes with acute cerebral injury in comatose survivors after cardiac arrest, which opens the possibility to implement early prognostic tools in clinical practice. The AWAKE trial is an investigator-initiated, multicenter, observational trial aiming to validate a spectral-based model to early predict cerebral performance and survival in resuscitated comatose survivors admitted to specialized intensive care units. The primary clinical outcome is favorable neurological performance (FNP) during hospitalization. Patients will be categorized into 4 subsets of NP according to the risk score obtained from the predictive model. The secondary clinical outcomes are survival to hospital discharge, and FNP and survival after 6 months of follow-up. Model-derived categorization will be compared with clinical outcomes to assess model sensitivity, specificity and accuracy. Eligible patients will be included prospectively and retrospectively, using an electronic Case Report Form to enter data from medical records and in-person interviews. Patients will be divided into: study group (predictive data required) including comatose (Glasgow Coma Scale -GCS- ≤8) survivors undergoing temperature control after return of spontaneous circulation (RoSC), and control group including patients who regain consciousness (GCS=15) after RoSC. VF tracings prior to the first DC shock will be digitized and analyzed to derive spectral data and risk scores.

Postoperative pain caused by surgery-associated tissue injury is a major concern for all the clinical practitioners. Because it affects multiple systems and induces physiological, immunological and psychological changes. Previous literature showed surgical injury induces a systemic inflammatory metabolic-endocrine response that is proportional to the severity of the surgical stress. In surgeries such as liver transplantation, the patients suffer not only from postoperative pain but also an additional oxidative stress caused by ischemia reperfusion. Previous report have proved that an adequate postoperative pain control improves the recovery and reduces the inflammatory cascade by suppression of physiological and psychological stresses. However, the effect of postoperative pain management on ischemia reperfusion injury is unclear so far. In this three year study, we plan to continue our previous study to test the following two hypothesis: (1) postoperative pain exacerbate remote organ injury caused by ischemia reperfusion, (2) the interaction of different antinociceptive modalities on ischemia reperfusion injury.

There is experimental evidence that low levels of adiponectin are associated with more reperfusion injury. In addition experimental studies have demonstrated that endothelial progenitor cells may have a favorable effect on remodeling, mainly through stimulation of neo-revascularisation. Clinical data on these issues are lacking. This clinical project studies the role of adiponectin, endothelial progenitor cells and endothelial microparticles in the ischaemia-reperfusion process and the compensatory ventricular remodelling in a population of 250 infarction patients treated with primary PCI. If the role of these factors could be confirmed in this clinical setting, those factors might represent a new target for therapeutic interventions in AMI patients.

In this proof-of-concept study, forearm vulnerability to ischemic exercise is studied in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus with and without prior ischemic preconditioning (short period of ischemia that protects against subsequent ischemic exercise). Annexin A5 scintigraphy is used to quantify subtle signs of mild and reversible forearm injury that results from ischemic exercise. The following hypotheses are tested: Patients with type 1 diabetes are not more vulnerable to ischemic injury as compared with previously studied healthy volunteers. Ischemic preconidtioning is still present in patients with type 1 diabetes. Depending on the validity of hypothesis 2, the effect of short pharmacological interventions are studied on vulnerability to forearm ischemia/reperfusion injury in the absence or presence of local forearm ischemic preconditioning.

The number of patients with end stage renal disease is increasing continuously and kidney transplantation is the preferred treatment modality. Modern immunosuppressive therapy has reduced the number of acute rejection episodes and increased one year allograft survival dramatically. Nonetheless, 4% of allografts are lost beyond the first year annually due to a multifactorial process and the latter number has not changed for decades. One of the most important factors to determine long-term success after kidney transplantation is the quality of the donor organ. For example, transplantation of organs from elderly or extended criteria donors results in reduced allograft and patient survival. In previous work, the investigators specifically focused on age-associated molecular signatures including telomere length and mRNA expression levels of the cell cycle inhibitors CDKN2A (p16INK4a) and CDKN1A (p21WAF1) and assessed these parameters in pre-implantation biopsies of 54 patients. In a linear regression analysis CDKN2A turned out to be the best single predictor for serum creatinine after 1 year followed by donor age and telomere length. A multiple linear regression analysis revealed that the combination of CDKN2A values and donor age yielded even higher predictive values. In another study the investigators were able to show an interaction between donor age and use of calcineurin inhibitors with regard to outcome after renal transplantation. During these past activities an extensive set of whole genome transcriptomics profile information from zero hour biopsies and clinical follow-up data has been collected. In the TOPVAS study, existing data derived from 72 of the above mentioned set of biopsies (exclusion of live donor grafts) will be analysed with state of the art bioinformatical/system biology tools to derive a general (not purely age associated) prognostic biomarker panel for functional transplant outcome two years after transplantation. This marker panel will also be used to define organs preferentially suitable for MMF/tacrolimus based immunosuppression. Both panels will then be validated for their prognostic and predictive information on the long-term outcome after transplantation in a new independent patient population treated with tacrolimus and MMF. In addition to biomarker assessment and in pursue of identifying alternative and/or complementary parameters with predictive value , an advanced morphological investigation of tissue biopsy life stains will be performed employing an innovative cell viability staining technology ("BIOPSYCHRONOLOGY").

Single-centre observational study over one year investigating the mechanisms of muscle homeostasis in patients with acute skeletal muscle atrophy following major aortic surgery

Myocardial protection has become an essential adjunctive measure in cardiac surgery to bail the myocardium out of ischemia/reperfusion-induced damage during the operation. Experimental studies have shown that lipid emulsion infusion just before reperfusion (i.e., intralipid postconditioning (ILPC)) could reduce myocardial infarct sizes, improve cardiac function, and reduce myocardial I/R injuries, despite the interesting experimental findings, the potential clinical usage of lipid emulsion in preventing myocardial I/R injury needs to be further investigated.

"Remote Ischaemic PreConditioning" (RIPC) is performed prior to partial nephrectomy. Postoperative calprotectin dynamics and Blood Oxygen-Level-Dependent (BOLD) MRI are used to to demonstrate the potential renoprotective effect of RIPC

The study is designed to assess the feasibility of evaluating YSPSL for the amelioration of ischemia reperfusion injury following liver transplantation by administering YSPSL into the liver graft directly ex vivo via the portal vein and to the recipient intravenously prior to reperfusion. This study is an extension of the recent pilot study YSPSL-0002 with an almost identical study protocol. The rationale of this and the previous study is based on the recent observation that P-selectin expression has been associated in liver grafts with prolonged cold storage times and rejection. By examining biomarkers of IRI including P-selectin by immunohistochemistry and/or quantitative PCR, liver histology and hepatic blood flow using established techniques, the goal of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of using these modalities for future studies of safety and efficacy.

The primary purpose of this study is to correlate new cardiac imaging modalities (2D, 3D echocardiography, contrast echocardiography, strain analysis and cardiac MRI) to biochemical parameters as the L-arginine-nitric oxide pathway and inflammatory cascades to characterize the reperfusion injury following myocardial infarction and thus providing a basis for further diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.