Active clinical trials for "Vascular Calcification"

To define the correlation of the levels of a-Klotho with the severity of vascular calcification in the coronary arteries and aortic valve.

The aim of this study was to evaluate whether successful sub-total parathyroidectomy retards cardiovascular calcification in patients with hemodialysis and to investigate the mechanism .

The aim of this study is to assess the effect of supplementation of vitamin K2 (menaquinone, MK-7) and cholecalciferol (inactive vitamin D) on circulating levels of calcification regulators and to assess their safety in pediatric patients on regular hemodialysis patients.

This pilot study aims to evaluate in an exploratory way the predictive power of a novel in vitro test (T50 Calcification Inhibition Test, T50 CIT), which measures the mineralization inhibition capacity of blood, in terms of its association with time to all-cause mortality in haemodialysis patients.

This study evaluates the local inflammatory and resolution response of patients undergoing peripheral vascular intervention like an angioplasty of the superficial femoral artery (SFA) or popliteal artery, or stenting of the iliac artery or SFA, through the use of Positron emission tomography-magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI). PET/MRI will be performed prior to intervention, one day and one week after intervention.

The aim of this study is to assess the clinical, laboratory and vascular calcification outcome within 6 months duration in patients undergoing surgical parathyroidectomy (total, subtotal, and total with autotransplantation)

A not randomized , cross sectional study will be done to determine the possible association of coronary artery calcification (CAC) score assessed by multirow spiral computed tomography (MSCT) with specific and non specific uremic factor of vascular calcification.

The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a link between calcium build up in the veins or arteries (including the veins/arteries of the heart) and deterioration of the bone. This will help understand if there is a connection between heart disease and bone disease.

BACKGROUND In the context of a progressively aging population, monitoring the status of Vascular Calcifications (VC) and Vertebral Fractures (VF) over time would be of primary importance, as VC and VF are recognized to be hallmarks of severe cardiovascular events (hospitalization and/or death) and hip fractures respectively, and VF represent an under-diagnosed cause of progressive disability and pain on its own. Moreover, there is an acknowledged relationships between VC and VF. However, data about the emergence/progression of VC and the emergence/worsening of VF over time are lacking. This is likely due to the absence of monitoring instruments for VC and VF that are both precise and easily accessible/applicable. OBJECTIVE This study aims to define the observer variability of a new software developed by the study sponsor and collaborators, called Calcify2D. Calcify2D offers physicians a computer-assisted procedure to simultaneously score vascular calcifications at the abdominal aorta and lumbar vertebral fractures (according to Quantitative Vertebral Morphometry principles) based on a latero-lateral thoracolumbar spine radiography. Secondary aims are the validation of the scores obtained from latero-lateral thoracolumbar spine radiography with more invasive and/or costly gold-standard imaging modalities (Computed Tomography for VC, Magnetic Resonance for VF) that may have been acquired near-simultaneously to radiographs on the patients enrolled for the study. STUDY DESIGN Not-for-profit monocentric observational study to be conducted on the diagnostic images of the thoracolumbar spine already collected at Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli (IOR) within a previous interventional study. Scoring of VC and VF will be performed by four clinicians from four relevant specialties, chosen among those who may often see VC and VF and are already familiar with the traditional scoring systems for both VC and VF (one radiologist and one spine orthopaedics from IOR, one nephrologist from the National Research Council and one internist from University of Padua). Each clinician will assess all radiographs to score VC and QVM, both via computer assisted procedures and via traditional visual inspection. To avoid bias, an interval of at least one week will be left between the computer assisted and visual scoring. To define intra-observer variability (i.e. repeatability), the whole dataset will be re-assessed three times.

In industrialized countries, it is estimated that around 10% of the population suffers from nephrolithiasis (NL). Numerous recent epidemiological studies report that the prevalence and incidence of NL continue to increase, with a prevalence that has nearly doubled over the past two decades. A patient who presented with a first episode of renal lithiasis has an estimated recurrence rate of nearly 50% at 5 years in adults. It is therefore wiser to consider NL as a chronic pathology and not as a simple isolated attack of painful crisis. NL therefore represents a real public health problem with a significant impact on the quality of life of patients, with considerable socio-economic repercussions. In clinical practice, calcium lithiasis is the most common and occurs in 90% of cases.The stones mainly consist of calcium oxalate (whewellite, weddellite) but also calcium phosphate (carbapatite, brushite). One of the risk factors for calcium lithiasis is the over-saturation of urine with calcium, which can lead to crystal formation. The most common metabolic abnormality found in patients with NL is hypercalciuria.It is defined as an increased excretion of urinary calcium.We can first distinguish hypercalciuria secondary to another pathology such as primary hyperparathyroidism, sarcoidosis, distal tubular acidosis, hypervitaminosis D, immobilization... from idiopathic hypercalciuria (HI), at the origin of so-called primary calcium lithiasis.HI is estimated to affect 30-60% of adults with NL. Idiopathic hypercalciuria is associated with low bone mineral density. Patients with NL have significantly lower T-score values in the vertebrae, hips, and femoral necks.Patients with NL have an increased risk of fractures and are 4 times more likely to develop osteoporosis. It is currently proposed that idiopathic hypercalciuria may be the cause of the decrease in bone mineral density in lithiasis patients.This bone demineralization appears to be associated with an increase in vascular calcifications.These, like NL, are believed to be linked to extra-osia calcium deposits.There is an inverse relationship between bone mineral density and arterial wall thickness (partly due to vascular calcifications) suggesting a relationship between arteriosclerosis and osteoporosis. This relationship would be much more pronounced in lithiasis women. In addition, several observations report an increase in cardiovascular morbidity in people with NL. NL should therefore be seen as a systemic disease and is also associated with several pathologies such as: metabolic syndrome, arterial hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. To the knowledge of the investigators, no statistical data concerning the prevalence of vascular calcifications and bone demineralization in the population of lithiasis patients in Belgium has been published to date. In this context, the aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of vascular calcifications (early state of arteriosclerosis) as well as the bone mineral density in the lithiasis population followed at the Brugmann University Hospital and with idiopathic hypercalciuria.