66 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
This is a pilot study that investigates the efficacy and safety of budesonide as an immune suppressing agent for liver transplant recipients in the early post-transplant period. The primary end-point is rates of acute cellular rejection within first 24 weeks post-liver transplant. Secondary end points include rates of new onset diabetes after transplant and safety of budesonide. The study is structured as a prospective clinical trial. After receiving 4 days of intravenous corticosteroids on liver transplant post-operative days 0 through 3, subjects will be started on standard immunosuppression plus enteric coated budesonide (study drug) in place of standard immune suppression plus prednisone (standard of care). Study drug will be tapered over 12 weeks in accordance with the existing standard of care immune suppression protocol. Subjects will be followed in outpatient transplant clinic for 24 weeks. The purpose of the study is to conduct a pilot study to generate rates and effect size that can be used in a subsequent equivalent trial. A total of 20 subjects will be enrolled to receive the standard immunosuppression plus budesonide and their outcomes will be compared to 20 controls receiving standard immunosuppression plus prednisone (standard of care). The use of controls is to generate rate and variability that can be compared with the rate obtained from patients that receive study drug by examining the 95% confidence band.
Magnetic Resonance Elastography (MRE) for cardiac transplant patients.
The investigators will use cardiac MRI to measure the myocardial perfusion reserve and amount of myocardial edema and fibrosis in heart-transplant patients with nonspecific allograft dysfunction in contrast to those with normal graft function. The investigators hypothesize that patients with nonspecific allograft dysfunction will demonstrate decreased myocardial perfusion reserve, related to microvascular allograft vasculopathy, compared to those with normal graft function.
The purpose of this study is to compare the safety and effectiveness of two different anti-rejection drug regimens.
The investigators will evaluate for early evidence of cardiac allograft dysfunction by cardiac MRI and single cell sequencing to determine underlying molecular and macroscopic causes.
The purpose of this study is to determine if everolimus combined with reduced exposure CNI (TAC) is efficacious and safe and will support corticosteroid elimination compared to a standard exposure CNI (TAC) + MMF + steroid regimen after paediatric kidney transplantation. An additional purpose of the study is to assess the effect of the combination of EVR and reduced exposure CNI (TAC) on renal function. This study is part of the requirements of the Paediatric Investigational Plan approved by Paediatric Committee at the European Medicines Agency (PDCO/EMA) on September 10, 2010, and is intended to support the indication of everolimus in the prevention of acute rejection in paediatric recipients of a renal transplant.
Heart transplantation is a life saving therapy for people with end stage heart failure. Acute rejection, a process where the immune system recognizes the transplanted heart as foreign and mounts a response against it, remains a clinical problem despite improvements in immunosuppressive drugs. Acute rejection occurs in 20-30% of patients within the first 3 months post-transplant, and is currently detected by highly invasive heart tissue biopsies that happen 12-15 times in the first year post-transplant. Replacing the biopsy with a simple blood test is of utmost value to patients and will reduce healthcare costs. The goal of our project is to develop a new blood test to monitor heart transplant rejection. Advances in biotechnology have enabled simultaneous measurement of many molecules (e.g., proteins, nucleic acids) in blood, driving the development of new diagnostics. Our team is a leader in using computational tools to combine information from numerous biological molecules and clinical data to generate "biomarker panels" that are more powerful than existing diagnostic tests. Our sophisticated analytic methods has recently derived HEARTBiT, a promising test of acute rejection comprising 9 RNA biomarkers, from the measurement of 30,000 blood molecules in 150 Canadian heart transplant patients. Our objective is to study a custom-built HEARTBiT test in a setting and on a technology that enable clinical adoption. We will evaluate the new test on 400 new patients from 5 North American transplant centres. We will also track patients' HEARTBiT scores over time to help predict future rejection, and explore use of proteins and micoRNAs to improve HEARTBiT. Our work will provide the basis for a future clinical trial. The significance of this work rests in that it will provide a tool to identify acute cardiac rejection in a fast, accurate, cost-effective and minimally invasive manner, allowing for facile long-term monitoring and therapy tailoring for heart transplant patients.
The purpose of this research study is to gain understanding of the basic responses of the lungs to inflammation and specifically if there may be a better way to detect graft inflammation using non-invasive methods as well as to determine the effectiveness of immunosuppressive treatment regimens in preventing acute rejection in lung transplant recipients.
The objective of the VIRTUUS Children's Study is to adapt identified and validated adult noninvasive diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for the characterization of allograft status in pediatric recipients of kidney allografts.
Acute rejection after kidney transplantation should ideally be diagnosed prior to immunologic injury in a non-invasive fashion in order to improve long-term graft function. Donor-derived cell-free DNA (ddcfDNA) is a promising method to do so as it is elevated prior to acute rejection and has good predictive performance especially for antibody-mediated and high severity T-cell mediated rejection. Its ability to predict low severity T-cell mediated rejection and future graft function remains equivocal. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are essential in transplant tolerance by suppressing effector immune responses. Circulating post-transplant highly suppressive HLA-DR+ Tregs were reduced in recipients who developed acute rejection. Preliminary results in a cohort including predominantly low severity T-cell mediated rejection also showed that pre-transplant circulating highly suppressive TNFR2+ Tregs were reduced in and could predict acute rejection. Integrating dd-cfDNA with HLA-DR+TNFR2+ Treg could improve the predictive performance for acute rejection especially of low severity and potentially predict graft function. Plasma dd-cfDNA and HLA-DR+TNFR2+ Tregs will be measured in 150 kidney transplant recipients at scheduled intervals during the first 6 months post-transplant. Predictive accuracy of a model integrating ddcfDNA and HLA-DR+TNFR2+ Treg for acute rejection will be tested using ROC curve analysis and multivariate logistic regression. Predictive accuracy for 1-year graft function will be tested using multivariate linear regression. High predictive performance for acute rejection and graft function using a model integrating dd-cfDNA and HLA-DR+TNFR2+ Treg would help identify kidney transplant recipients at immunologic risk early on and allow personalization of immunosuppression accordingly.
This study was designed to assess the evolution of renal function and to collect efficacy, safety, and tolerability data of everolimus in co-exposure with reduced CNI in paediatric liver transplant recipients.
This study is being done to study a safe and non-invasive way to diagnose lung rejection and infection.
This is a prospective, multicenter, observational study of kidney transplant subjects where blood specimens, intended for dd-cfDNA and other future research purposes, will be drawn after transplant
This is a study that will follow transplant patients from Study A3921030 to monitor for long term safety, tolerability and efficacy for 5 additional years, except in Portugal where the study will follow transplant patients through Month 36 posttransplant. Patients will continue their study medications that were previously assigned.
Efficacy and safety of AEB071 in combination with mycophenolate acid sodium, basiliximab and steroids in preventing acute rejection after kidney transplantation.
A new immunosuppressive drug, based on the inhibition of an important enzyme in the immune system called JAK3, is being developed by Pfizer to prevent transplant rejection. In this research study, a JAK3 inhibitor or cyclosporine will be given to new kidney transplant patients for 12 months. Patients will be assigned to one of three treatment groups after receiving a kidney transplant. Two of the treatment groups will receive 2 different dosing regimens of the JAK3 inhibitor that will be taken by mouth. The third treatment group will be a standard-of-care control arm. Patients will continue to take the assigned study medication for 12 months as well as other standard transplant medications such as prednisone.
A new immunosuppressive drug, based on the inhibition of an important enzyme in the immune system called JAK3, is being developed by Pfizer to prevent transplant rejection. In study A3921009, kidney transplant patients were given a JAK inhibitor or tacrolimus for 6 months posttransplant. Patients who completed study A3921009 were offered the opportunity to participate in study A3921021 which will extend the evaluation of safety and efficacy of CP-690,550 versus tacrolimus through 8 years posttransplant. In treatment group 1 (control arm), subjects will continue to receive tacrolimus. In treatment groups 2 and 3, subjects will continue to receive CP-690,550. Per Amendment 4, the tacrolimus comparator arm will be discontinued.
The significance of this clinical trial lies in its potential to increase the success of immunosuppression (IS) therapy withdrawal in liver transplant (LT) recipients, thus decreasing the negative impact of IS on their long-term outcomes. Lifetime immunosuppression (IS) with standard agents, the calcineurin inhibitors (CNI) cyclosporine and tacrolimus (TAC), is currently required at clinically recommended doses and trough levels to prevent allograft rejection. However, this occurs at the significant expense of long-term CNI toxicity, i.e. chronic kidney disease (CKD), hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, infections and malignancy. With improvements in early graft and patient survival, long term adverse IS effects have become increasingly important in this rapidly expanding patient population. The strategies to reduce long term CNI toxicity include dose minimization that still leaves patients on CNI therapy, conversion to non-CNI therapy, or even complete IS withdrawal. The second approach, conversion to non-CNI IS therapy, is attractive in the potential to stabilize or improve renal function and other CNI toxicities. One such non-nephrotoxic IS agent, the mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor (mTOR-I) SRL, has a different mechanism of IS action and studies have shown that CNI to SRL conversion can stabilize renal dysfunction with a low risk of rejection. Yet even with these possible benefits, patients on SRL are still subject to lifetime IS therapy with side effects and costs, highlighting the need to investigate the strategies that promote full IS withdrawal without rejection (3rd approach), also known as 'operational tolerance'.
Chronic Allograft Nephropathy (CAN)/Interstitial fibrosis and Tubular Atrophy (IFTA) is responsible for most kidney transplant failures. CAN/IFTA on a 3 month kidney biopsy strongly predicts graft survival long term. CAN/IFTA remains a vexing problem for clinicians because current monitoring tools, namely the serum creatinine concentration, are not sensitive to early changes in glomerular filtration rate (GFR) or to histologic damage. Despite advances in prevention of acute rejection (AR), it is still a significant and potentially devastating complication of solid organ transplantation. One strategy to reduce the risk of rejection is to perform kidney biopsies to detect subclinical acute rejection (SCAR) and treat to prevent progression to rejection. There is evidence that treating SCAR can prevent further immune mediated injury to the kidney, a precursor to CAN/IFTA. Kidney biopsies provide better information but are limited due to safety concerns, patient preference and cost issues. Better, early and less invasive markers of CAN/IFTA will allow early intervention as well as improved graft and better patient outcomes. This study seeks to validate specific proteogenomic biomarker panels for AR and CAN/IFTA in a prospective blood, urine and kidney tissue monitoring study of kidney transplant recipients who will be scheduled for standard of care biopsies.
Dynamic digital radiography (DDR) is a new advanced version of chest radiography that captures dynamic images at a rate of 15 frames per second. It is coupled with an analytical software that allows it to provide more advanced measures of lung motion, ventilation, and perfusion compared to traditional chest radiography. While implementation of DDR fixed machines are beginning elsewhere in the US, this trial involves the first applications of an FDA-approved portable DDR machine, for use at the bedside in the ICU. The goal of this clinical trial is to determine the feasibility and safety of portable DDR technology in the ICU, as well as to evaluate the improved clinical diagnostic value of the portable DDR system over current standards of care. Participants will receive one to three sets of DDR images, which will then be compared to their clinical gold standard exams (such as chest x-rays, CTs, or VQ scans) to assess and improve the precision and accuracy of measurements such as diaphragmatic motion, lung movement, and perfusion.
The primary goal of this Multicenter Study is to develop and to evaluate a method for measuring donor-specific cell free DNA in blood samples from transplant recipients as markers of rejection. Blood samples obtained periodically from heart transplant recipients are assessed for cell free DNA relative to clinical data in order to determine whether changes in the level of cell free DNA indicate rejection. This research study proposes testing a blood sample obtained from the heart transplant recipient. The research seeks to establish whether this blood test will show when the patient is beginning to or already rejecting the transplanted heart. BACKGROUND Identifying if a transplant patient is beginning to or already rejecting the heart is necessary, so that appropriate treatment can be started to halt the rejection. Heart catheterization with biopsy is the usual method used for assessing whether a patient may be rejecting the heart. There are also a number of other methods that transplant physicians will use to look for signs of rejection including other blood tests, echocardiograms, obtaining pressure readings during heart catheterization, and micro-array testing of blood obtained during biopsy. These technologies are limited in ability to consistently and accurately identify the presence of rejection. The usual method of checking for rejection involves obtaining a sample of the heart tissue (heart biopsy); biopsy can only be accomplished through heart catheterization which is an invasive procedure that has risks associated with disturbing the heart such as puncturing the heart or causing the heart rate to change or damaging tissue in the heart. Overtime, repeating this invasive procedure can diminish the ease of the procedure because the veins can become scarred and more difficult to access. For these reasons, researchers believe that it would be good to have a blood test that gives information about the possibility of rejection so that it may not be necessary to do as many heart biopsies. Also, a blood test may be able to provide information about the heart or about rejection that is currently not available at all.
The objective of this study is to determine whether cell-free DNA (cf-DNA) measurement can be used as a biomarker for successful treatment of an acute rejection (AR) episode after kidney transplantation. A fall in donor cf-DNA level may be a biomarker for successful AR treatment. The goal is to do an exploratory study to determine, in recipients with biopsy-proven AR, whether persistence or elevated levels of donor cf-DNA are associated with ongoing inflammation at the time of exit biopsy; and whether fall in donor cf-DNA level is associated with successful AR treatment. Measurement of cf-DNA has recently been started for kidney transplant recipients. There will be two groups of patients eligible for this study: 1. those who have had sequential measurement of cf-DNA prior to graft dysfunction leading to a biopsy, and 2. those who have not had previous measurement of cf-DNA
The primary objective of this proposal is to show the efficacy of contrast enhanced ultrasonography in detecting heart transplant rejection in humans. The secondary objective is to demonstrate the efficacy of this technique in generating data which allow for the assessment of short and long term outcomes.
The purpose of this research study is to evaluate the safety, effect, and pharmacology of C1 Esterase Inhibitor (human) in kidney transplant patients with acute Antibody-Mediated Rejection (AMR).
This study is being conducted to determine how safe and effective using an immune cell (b cell) depleting therapy and/or Thymoglobulin is in patients with a kidney transplant who are experiencing certain types of rejection.
This trial was to examine the impact of everolimus and reduced dose of cyclosporine on efficacy and safety compared to mycophenolate mofetil and a standard dose of cyclosporine in heart transplant recipients.
A multicenter clinical study comparing event-free survival at 6 months after transplant between Thymoglobulin-treated and Simulect-treated adult kidney transplant patients. Patients received Thymoglobulin or Simulect from Day 0 through Day 4. Day 0 was considered the day of the transplant procedure. Subjects meeting all inclusion and exclusion criteria were eligible to participate in this study. The treatment assignment was random and not chosen by the subject or their physician. Subjects were monitored during treatment with Thymoglobulin and during the transplant hospitalization. Additional subject monitoring occurred up to 12 months after transplant. 278 study subjects were enrolled at 28 transplant centers in the United States and Europe.
This phase II trial studies pentostatin and donor lymphocyte infusion in preventing graft rejection in patients who have undergone donor stem cell transplant. Giving pentostatin and an infusion of the donor's T cells (donor lymphocyte infusion) after a donor stem cell transplant may stop the patient's immune system from rejecting the donor's stem cells. The donated stem cells may replace the patient's immune cells and help destroy any remaining cancer cells (graft-versus-tumor effect). Sometimes the transplanted cells from a donor can also make an immune response against the body's normal cells. Giving pentostatin before donor lymphocyte infusion may stop this from happening.
This study involves the use of a drug called Thymoglobulin, which is approved in the US to treat kidney transplant rejection and in Canada to treat and to prevent kidney transplant rejection. This study will evaluate the effect of Thymoglobulin and reduced doses of steroids to prevent renal transplant rejection and will provide a basis for future evaluations of Thymoglobulin as an immunosuppressive agent to help prevent renal transplant rejection. Subjects meeting all inclusion and exclusion criteria are eligible to participate in this study. In addition to standard treatment, study participants will receive either Thymoglobulin with rapid discontinuation of steroids or steroids per hospital standards for at least the first 90 days after transplant. The treatment assignment is random and is not chosen by the subject or their physician. Subjects will be monitored during treatment with Thymoglobulin and during the transplant hospitalization. Additional subject monitoring occurs at Months 1, 3, 6 and 12 following the transplant. Approximately 150 study subjects from 15-20 transplant centers in the United States will be enrolled.
The goal of this observational study is to determine phenotypic, transcriptional, and epigenetic underpinnings of renal allograft rejection in renal transplant rejection. The main questions it aims to answer are: * To determine the phenotype, frequency, location, and the inter-cellular interactions between the cells that constitute intra-graft inflammatory infiltrate in acute ejection. * To determine the phenotype, frequency, location, and the inter-cellular interactions between the cells that constitute intra-graft inflammatory infiltrate in recurrent/recalcitrant rejection vs. rejection that resolves with therapy. * To generate a scRNA sequencing (scRNAseq) map of the intra-graft immune cells and the renal parenchymal cells and compare the transcriptional and epigenetic changes within these cells in recurrent/recalcitrant rejection vs. rejection that resolves with therapy. * To determine phenotypic changes associated with chronic rejection. Participants will be asked to provide the following research specimens: * Renal biopsy specimens at the following timepoints: day of transplantation (pre-implantation and post-perfusion); routine protocol biopsies at 3 months and 12 months; and clinically indicated for-cause biopsies at any timepoint from time-0 to 1-yr post-transplantation. The 1st research core will be used for routine histopathological examination and left over tissue from this core will be used for deep phenotyping using multiparameter immunophenotyping, and digital spatial profiling. The second research core will be used for extraction of cells and nuclei for scRNAseq and snATACseq. * Blood samples will be processed to obtain plasma (for cytokine, chemokine and DSA measurements) and PBMC (for deep phenotyping and molecular analyses). For each collection timepoint, up to 75 mL (about 5 tablespoons) will be collected. * Prospective clinical data and outcomes will be collected from participant medical records. * Follow-Up Period: For-cause biopsies from 1-yr to 5-yr post-transplantation (by the transplant nephrologist): no additional cores will be obtained for research from these biopsies. The left-over tissue from the clinically indicated biopsy cores will be analyzed by deep phenotyping and digital spatial profiling. Blood samples will be processed to obtain plasma (for cytokine, chemokine and DSA measurements) and PBMC (for deep phenotyping and molecular analyses).