Active clinical trials for "Toxoplasmosis"

Toxoplasma gondii infects over one third of the global human population. Cerebral toxoplasmosis is the most common opportunistic infection in HIV patients resulting in up to 50% of mortality with proper treatment and 80% without it. The fatality mainly due to the brain edema resulted from the mass effect lesion. In addition of anti toxoplasmosis given, adjunctive therapy such as steroid is recommended in order to reduce brain edema, but the dose and duration of administration in cerebral toxoplasmosis has not been evaluated in a clinical trial. Adjunctive therapy given in cerebral toxoplasmosis patients still remains unclear. Moreover, its safety in immunodeficiency cases is still debatable.

RATIONALE: Congenital toxoplasmosis is an infection caused by the parasitic organism Toxoplasma gondii, and it may be passed from an infected mother to her unborn child. The mother may have mild symptoms or no symptoms; the fetus, however, may experience damage to the eyes, nervous system, skin, and ears. The newborn may have a low birth weight, enlarged liver and spleen, jaundice, anemia, petechiae, and eye damage. Giving the antiparasitic drugs pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine is standard treatment for congenital toxoplasmosis, but it is not yet known which regimen of pyrimethamine is most effective for the disease. PURPOSE: Randomized phase IV trial to determine which regimen of pyrimethamine is most effective when combined with sulfadiazine and leucovorin in treating patients who have congenital toxoplasmosis.

The Toxoplasma gondii parasite causes toxoplasmosis. It is characterized by persistent cysts mostly localised in the brain and ocular areas. In the case of immunodeficiency, those cysts are likely to reactivate. During pregnancy, an infection exposes the foetus to a variety of consequences, from severe neurologic lesions to subclinical forms at birth. However, those forms are likely to complicate at any age to toxoplasmic retinochoroiditis, that can unpredictably recur with severe functional consequences. Pregnancy may stimulate lesions or their recurrences, putting the foetus at risk of contamination because of the release of tachyzoites in the bloodstream. The occurrence of these complications is poorly known, especially with congenital toxoplasmosis. Nevertheless, this information is essential to take care of patients, particularly women with congenital toxoplasmosis, usually worried about the consequences of a pregnancy. As a precaution, women with congenital toxoplasmosis follow a specific ophthalmologic, and trimonthly monitoring, composed of fundus examinations during pregnancy and in postpartum. To eliminate the contamination risk, serological examinations at birth and one year later are done on their kids. The aim of this study is to estimate the risk of toxoplasmic retinochoroiditis during pregnancy and the impact on their children. Retrospective and prospective data from the Lyon Cohort of Maternal and Congenital Toxoplasma Infections will be used. As a result of to this study, the investigators expect to provide better information to women suffering from congenital toxoplasmosis about their own ocular safety during pregnancy, and the safety of their child(ren). The investigators seek to provide new national and international recommendations about these patients and their children's care.

Several decades ago, France has made the choice to implement a national prevention program for congenital toxoplasmosis. The identification in their first trimester of pregnancy of all pregnant women who are susceptible to Toxoplasma infection has been mandatory since 1985. In 1992, the decision was made to extent the program to the monthly retesting of all women identified as not immune, in an attempt to reduce the number of severely infected children. The systematic detection of all maternal and congenital infections has generated many questions from clinicians, biologists, parents and older patients, on the short and long-term prognosis of congenital toxoplasmosis, on the best tests to use to diagnose infections in mothers and children, on the efficacy of existing treatments, and on how to manage patients in the long-term. The need to answer these many questions has prompted the medical team working within the laboratory and the outpatient department of the Parasitology Department at the Croix-Rousse Hospital in Lyon to implement a clinical research program. It is based on the systematic inclusion in our cohort of all pregnant women whose infection is confirmed, on their follow up, in order to monitor the outcome of pregnancy 2) and on the follow up of their children in order to confirm their infection or to rule it out. All congenitally infected subjects undergo clinical examinations, serological tests and ocular examination at least once a year without age limit. The following data are prospectively collected in a dedicated database: gestational age at maternal infection and corresponding serological profile; type and dates of maternal treatment; findings of ultrasound tests and amniotic fluid analysis; serological and clinical findings at birth; types and dates of postnatal treatment; postnatal serological profiles; infection status at one year of age; long term clinical (ophthalmologic) et serological findings. These data have allowed producing original findings on the risk of maternal-foetal transmission according to gestational age at maternal infection, on the long term ophthalmological outcome of congenital toxoplasmosis and to offer guidelines for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of maternal and congenital infections. These efforts are still to be maintained in the future in order to further analyse the impact of puberty, pregnancy, or adult co-morbidities on the risk of ophthalmological events to increase precision around our risk estimates for materno-foetal transmission, to continue innovating in terms of diagnostic strategy to improve tests performances and reduce costs to explore new potential clinical outcomes such as neuropsychiatric disorders associated with congenital and postnatal infection to determine if infections due to oocysts could have different clinical outcomes than those due to the ingestion of cysts to assess the efficacy of treatments for maternal and congenital infections

I. Evaluation of T. gondii infection in cancer patients using different serological markers. II. Studying genetic lineages infecting cancer patients in Sohag Governorate to predict clinical course and therapeutic needs using B1 and RE genes.

Toxoplasmosis is one of the most common zoonotic diseases caused by the obligate intracellular parasite, T. gondii. It affects up to one-third of the world's population Horizontal transmission is mostly caused by ingestion of tissue cysts in infected meat, or through consumption of food or drink contaminated with sporulated oocysts, while vertical transmission occurs due to primary acquired maternal infection throughout pregnancy.In immunocompetent hosts, acquired infection is asymptomatic in more than 80% of cases, or is associated with fever,cervical lymphadenopathy, or myalgia. In immunocompromised patients,toxoplasmosis is always life-threatening where toxoplasmic encephalitis is the most important presentation. Among those patients, the disease may be caused by a newly acquired infection, reactivation following cyst rupture, donation of a cyst-containing organ from a seropositive donor to a seronegative recipient, or reactivation of dormant infection in the recipient Patients with hematological malignancy (HM), including those with acute myelogenous leukemia, and those who have undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplantation or treated with aggressive immunosuppressive regimens are at high risk of opportunistic infections The association between toxoplasmosis and cancers remains dual. Most cancer patients are in a state of impaired cellular and humoral immune systems either from the primary disease, or from chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy administration. Chemotherapeutic drugs work by killing both fast growing cancer cells, and healthy white blood cells causing neutropenia. So, patients receiving chemotherapy are more susceptible to Toxoplasma infections. Many studies have reported that the rate of reactivation of a latent T. gondii infection was higher in different types of cancers particularly those of the eye, brain, blood and breast. On the other side, T. gondii was also implicated as possible oncogenic pathogen with suggested role in induction and progression of malignant diseases. This was explained by many theories such as preventing apoptosis, enhancing the motility of dendritic cells and macrophages.

Acne vulgaris is one if the most common chronic inflammatory skin disorders.Acne is characterized by forming of inflammatory and non inflammatory lesions mainly on the Face,neck,arms, upper trunk and back

Background: - People who are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are at risk of getting certain diseases. Two of these diseases are a type of pneumonia known as PCP and a brain infection called toxoplasmosis. Most people with HIV take antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to treat HIV and lower the risk of infections. However, some ARV drugs may make other drugs used to treat PCP and toxoplasmosis less effective. Researchers want to test specific ARV drugs to see if they affect atovaquone, a drug used to treat PCP and toxoplasmosis. Objectives: - To see if ARV drugs atazanavir-ritonavir or efavirenz lower the blood levels of atovaquone. Eligibility: Individuals between 18 and 70 years of age who have HIV. Participants must be taking efavirenz or atazanavir-ritonavir, or not taking any ARV drugs. Design: Participants will be screened with a physical exam and medical history. They will also have blood and urine tests. This study has a screening visit and five study visits. Two of the study visits will last about 12 hours; the other three visits will last about 1 hour each. Participants will receive either a low dose or high dose of atovaquone to take for 14 days. They will record doses and any symptoms on a diary card at home. After 14 days, participants will have a 12-hour visit to provide blood samples. There will be a wash-out period with no doses for up to 6 weeks. After the wash-out period, participants will switch dose levels to either the high or low dose. After 14 days, participants will have a 12-hour visit to provide blood samples.

To evaluate the effectiveness and toxicity of oral azithromycin and pyrimethamine as acute therapy for toxoplasmic encephalitis in AIDS patients. To assess the toxicity and effectiveness of azithromycin alone as maintenance therapy. Encephalitis caused by Toxoplasma gondii is the most frequent cause of focal central nervous system infection in patients with AIDS. Untreated, the encephalitis is fatal. Standard treatment for toxoplasmic encephalitis is associated with serious adverse effects. Thus, alternative treatments are needed.

To evaluate the efficacy, safety, and tolerance of atovaquone with either pyrimethamine or sulfadiazine in AIDS patients with toxoplasmic encephalitis. AIDS patients with toxoplasmic encephalitis who receive the standard therapy combination of sulfadiazine and pyrimethamine experience a high frequency of severe toxicity. Atovaquone, an antibiotic that has demonstrated efficacy against toxoplasmosis in animal models and in preclinical testing has been well tolerated, is now available as a suspension, which is more readily absorbed than the tablet form of the drug. The efficacy and safety of atovaquone in combination with sulfadiazine or pyrimethamine will be studied.