Active clinical trials for "Sclerosis"

This study will examine whether fasudil is effective and safe in treating patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Biomarkers are essential for the identification of disease states. There are no early diagnostic or prognostic markers for ALS. The purpose of this study is to identify a panel of biomarkers from blood or spinal fluid of ALS patients and to collect data to better understand disease progression.

This study is designed to evaluate the neuroprotective effect of lamotrigine in the combination of interferon beta 1a once weekly intramuscular in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

The purpose of this study is to determine the safety and efficacy of the mTOR inhibitor sirolimus as a treatment for renal angiomyolipomas in patients with tyberous sclerosis complex or sporadic lymphangioleiomyomatosis.

Impaired short term memory, attention and concentration lapses, and slower processing of information occur in up to 40-65% of patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The quality of life of individuals with MS is impacted to the degree with which they experience these symptoms. There are several medications approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat MS symptoms and to modify (slow) disease course. Traditional approaches to determining the effectiveness of medications used in treating MS rely on reports of the number of relapses an individual experiences, as well as standard clinical tests, such as the Kurtzke Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS). This research study will look at whether the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan can be used as a tool for measuring changes in the brain associated with treatment in MS patients. Unlike a typical MRI which provides structural information about the brain, the fMRI provides information about brain activity during performance of cognitive or motor tasks.

This study consists of two parts. The first part is a survey to examine vision-specific health-related quality of life in a cohort of patients with multiple sclerosis. We test visual impairment like visual acuity, visual field, colour discrimination, contrast sensitivity, eye movement. The aim of this part is to examine the association between responses to the quality of life scale and objective measures of visual impairment. The second part is an open controlled study, in which we measure motion detection threshold in MS patients with oscillopsia due to pendular nystagmus and in a group of control subjects. The objective of this part is to determine whether patients with pendular nystagmus develop adaptation to oscillopsia using increased threshold of motion detection. We plan to test the effect of visuo-motor rehabilitation on this threshold in patients with oscillopsia due to pendular nystagmus.

Randomised double blind study of two parallel groups,one of the groups trained with the full APOS kit (a shoe with an additional bio mechanical device) The control group trained with the Apos shoe without the bio mechanical device. both groups will be checked at the beginning of the study, one month later and at the end of the study after two months. The tests include neurological test, functional test(FSST,up and go test and berg balance test) gate analysis and quality fo life (rays) test.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects 1 in 1000 people in western countries, mainly women in their childbearing years. It is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS), which results in a chronic focal inflammatory response with subsequent demyelination and axonal loss. Recent prospective studies reported a significant decline by two-thirds in the rate of relapses during the third trimester of pregnancy and a significant increase by two-thirds during the first three months post-partum by comparison to the relapse rate observed during the year prior to the pregnancy (Confavreux et al., 1998). These dramatic changes in the relapse rate occur at a time when the impregnation of many substances (among which, sexual steroids) is at its highest, before a dramatic decline to the pre-pregnancy levels, immediately following delivery. It may be hypothesized that sexual steroids could exert beneficial effects through a modulation of the immune state with a lowering of the pro-inflammatory lymphocyte responses of the Th1 type and an enhancement of the anti-inflammatory responses of the Th2 type. They may also play a direct role in the remyelination of central nervous system lesions, as they do in the peripheral nervous system. The POPART'MUS study is a European, multicentre, randomized, placebo-controlled and double-blind clinical trial, which aims to prevent MS relapses related to the post-partum condition, by administering high doses of progestin (nomegestrol acetate), in combination with endometrial protective doses of estradiol. Treatment will be given immediately after delivery and continuously during the first three months post-partum. Assuming the results of the trial to be positive, this new treatment could be considered in the relapsing-remitting phase of the disease in women afar from pregnancy and post-partum.

This is a study in patients with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) and early relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) to assess the effects of glatiramer acetate (GA) subcutaneously on the condition of the optical nerve in comparison to no medicinal therapy during 12 months and to assess the use of Optical Coherence tomography (OCT), a non-invasive ophthalmological technique, in daily practice as an alternative to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning for follow-up of these patients.

In the present study, we, the investigators at Sheba Medical Center, intend to evaluate T cell vaccination (TCV) in patients with probable multiple sclerosis (MS) within up to 3 months after the first clinical attack. It is of the utmost importance to evaluate the treatment effects at the onset of disease, i.e. in patients with probable MS, in order to evaluate whether early treatment can prevent the second attack (conversion to definite MS). Moreover, at disease onset, the immunological process of epitope spreading associated with the exposure of the immune system to myelin antigens is still limited. With additional attacks, increased recognition of new self-determinants of encephalitogenic peptides presented to the immune system during the inflammatory process occurs, and enhances further disease activity. The aim of the early TCV treatment approach is to stop this process as early as possible, during the onset of the disease, thus preventing additional attacks and disease progression. We will evaluate the effect of TCV on clinical, immunological and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameters in patients with probable MS.