51 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Heart transplant (HTx) is an established therapy for advanced heart disease that restores quality of life and improves survival. However, due to preexisting comorbidities combined with the immunosuppressive therapies required after transplantation, HTx recipients remain at high risk for kidney, cardiovascular (CV), and metabolic disease. Large randomized clinical trials have recently shown that sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) have potent kidney protective and CV benefits in many populations of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), CV disease and/or diabetes. SGLT2i have not been studied prospectively in HTx recipients, which represents a barrier to their use in this population. In this multicenter randomized controlled trial in Veterans with HTx, investigators will evaluate the potential benefits of empagliflozin on kidney function, cardiometabolic risk, erythropoiesis, and functional status. A total of 200 Veterans will be randomly assigned to receive either empagliflozin 10 mg daily or a matching placebo for 12 months.
This will be a prospective, randomized study performed at a single tertiary referral academic medical center (University of California San Francisco, CA), evaluating the survival benefits of levothyroxine compared with no levothyroxine for patients who have undergone heart transplant. It will be double-blinded and placebo-control; participants will be randomized to receive levothyroxine or receive no levothyroxine.
This research study is investigating whether completing breathing exercises before surgery helps heart transplant patients recover after surgery. Previous studies have shown that breathing exercises can improve breathing, cough, and swallow function in patients with other diseases/conditions. The current study will investigate the impact of a preoperative respiratory muscle strength training program on breathing and cough function, swallow function, patient-reported eating and swallowing fatigue, and health outcomes in individuals undergoing heart transplantation. Participants will: * undergo tests of breathing, cough, and swallow function * complete questionnaires about the treatment, their swallow function * complete breathing exercises daily
We will conduct a two-group randomized controlled trial to examine the eMocha DOT intervention with pediatric HT recipients.In this population, medication nonadherence remains a primary cause of late acute rejection (LAR) episodes, increased number of hospitalizations, graft failure, and patient mortality. Herein, we propose an innovative approach to promote medication adherence and improve patient and graft outcomes.
This is an open label trial in which letermovir will be given as prophylaxis for the prevention of CMV infection and disease to all heart transplants who are at risk for cytomegalovirus. The study will compare a 30 patient prospective cohort to a retrospective cohort of 374 heart transplant recipients for the rates of neutropenia. In addition, the tolerability of letermovir will be assessed in this population.
The TEAMMATE Trial will enroll 210 pediatric heart transplant patients from 25 centers at 6 months post-transplant and follow each patient for 2.5 years. Half of the participants will receive everolimus and low-dose tacrolimus and the other half will receive tacrolimus and mycophenolate mofetil. The trial will determine which treatment is better at reducing the cumulative risk of coronary artery vasculopathy, chronic kidney disease and biopsy proven-acute cellular rejection without an increase in graft loss due to all causes (e.g. infection, PTLD, antibody mediated rejection).
This is a randomized, controlled, single center study to evaluate the efficacy of Thymoglobulin induction therapy in combination with Mycophenolate Mofetil, tacrolimus, and steroids in the prevention of CAV. Approximately half of the patients will be randomized to receive a total of 5 doses of Thymoglobulin during the study. The first dose of Thymoglobulin will be administered at 1.5 mg/kg via intravenous infusion over 6 hours immediately upon arrival to the ICU post-operation (day 1). Subsequent doses of 1.5 mg/kg will be administered on days 2, 3, 4, and 5 via IV infusion over 4 hours. Mechanistic assays (T-reg cells, Lym subsets, B cell subsets, IL-1b, cytokines, TGFb, IL-21 to be drawn at Pre-transplant, 3, 6, 12 months post-transplant) will also be performed. All patients will be followed and monitored according to standard of care protocols for heart transplant recipients at our center.
Hypothesis: CAV is associated with fibrotic changes on cardiac MRI, altered levels of pathogenetically-related biomarkers, and specific RNA expression changes in the blood
The objective of this registry is to observe short and long term clinical outcomes in heart transplant recipients who receive regular AlloMap testing as part of allograft rejection surveillance.
Hypothesis 1: Treatment of heart transplant recipients with sildenafil, a PDE-5 inhibitor, will improve small artery elasticity (SAE) when compared to placebo. Hypothesis 2: PDE-5 inhibition will improve endothelial function, resulting in increased production of nitric oxide, reduced activation of circulating endothelial cells, and increased endothelial progenitor cells.
1. Early initiation of sirolimus will prevent or delay the development of intimal thickening and subsequent graft failure. 2. Treatment guided by the development of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) on intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) will be more effective in delaying progression of CAV compared to treatment guided by angiography. 3. Prevention of the development and progression of intimal thickness on IVUS will prevent the development of heart failure, graft dysfunction, and cardiovascular death related to CAV. 4. Small artery elasticity predicts progression of cardiac allograft vasculopathy and is modified by sirolimus 5. Patients who have no progression of CAV will have favorable improvement in biomarkers and endothelial cells compared to patients who have progression of CAV
This open label study will assess the pharmacokinetics and the safety and tolerability of Valcyte (valganciclovir) powder for oral solution in neonatal and infant heart transplant patients \< 4 months of age.
The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis that administering Thymoglobulin® induction therapy early after transplant prevents the development of cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV). CAV accounts for a significant number of deaths in cardiac recipients after the first year of transplant. At 5 years post-transplant 30% of the deaths are due to CAV. With the exception of re-transplantation the available treatments for CAV are only effective at inhibiting its progression. CAV involves only the allograft and spares the native arteries, suggesting an immunologic basis for the disease. However, both immunological and non-immunological factors contribute to the development of CAV. The established immunological risk factors are recurrent rejection and humoral/antibody-mediated rejection (AMR). Non-immunological risk factors identified include preservation injury, the cause of donor death, donor graft ischemic time, and cytomegalovirus infection1. It is hypothesized that these factors increase the risk of developing CAV by causing early endothelial damage to the graft, which then could promote increased lymphocyte-endothelial interactions and the production of anti-endothelial antibodies2. The investigators hypothesized that Thymoglobulin induction therapy would prevent the development of CAV because its polyclonal nature allows Thymoglobulin to target all the potential mechanisms that contribute to the development of CAV-T-cell activation, B-cell activation, antibody formation, induction of tolerance, and modulation of lymphocyte-endothelium interactions3. Because the mechanism by which Thymoglobulin affects the immune system are still poorly understood, the investigators will also study how Thymoglobulin changes the immune system over time in the heart transplant recipient as a secondary objective.
Bradykinin stimulates t-PA release from intact vessels, but not from endothelial cells in culture. It has been proposed that the nerves of blood vessels are the source of bradykinin stimulated t-PA release. In order tho test this hypothesis, we intend to infuse bradykinin into the brachial (arm) artery and the coronary arteries of heart transplant recipients and control subjects. This is because heart transplant recipients do not have nerves to their coronary arteries. This protocol studies the effects of bradykinin on t-PA release in the forearm of transplant recipients. The brachial artery has intact nerves. Separate protocols address coronary artery infusions in healthy subjects and transplant recipients and forearm infusions in healthy subjects.
Heart transplant recipients do not have nerves to their hearts. This protocol tests the hypothesis that bradykinin mediated t-PA release in the coronary arteries will be reduced in heart transplant recipients compared to healthy subjects. This study will compare heart transplant recipients to healthy controls who are undergoing cardiac cath for standard of care purposes (separate protocol) and compare the coronary arteries to the forearm in transplant recipients (separate protocol) and healthy controls (separate protocol).
The restoration of normal blood flow following a period of ischemia may result in ischemia / reperfusion injury (I/RI), which is characterized by inflammation and oxidative damage to tissues. Varying degrees of I/RI occur upon reperfusion of a donor heart after cold storage. Medications containing antibodies against immune cells have been used for many years as powerful immunosuppressants. These medications, called polyclonal antibody preparations, are generally only used immediately following transplantation and/or to treat rejection. At our institution, one such antibody preparation (Thymoglobulin) is used in most pediatric heart transplant recipients for 3-5 days immediately after transplantation. Because standard immunosuppressive medications (called calcineurin inhibitors) are toxic to the kidneys, the use of Thymoglobulin allows us to delay the initiation of calcineurin inhibitors until the kidneys of completely recovered from the shock of the transplant surgery. We hypothesize that Thymoglobulin may be beneficial in reducing the damage caused by I/RI. Thus, the present study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of an intra-operative dose of Thymoglobulin (in addition to the standard doses post-operatively) at reducing the effects of I/RI. The study will be a double-bind placebo-controlled trial involving 20 subjects. Biologic markers for I/RI will be assessed at periodic intervals for six months post-transplantation. Subjects receiving intra-operative doses of Thymoglobulin will be compared to the controls in order to assess the effectiveness of intra-operative Thymoglobulin in ameliorating the effects of I/RI.
Mycophenolate sodium (Myfortic®) is a newly developed enteric-coated tablet version of mycophenolate mofetil (Cellcept®) which is currently used as therapy for the prevention of transplant rejection. Myfortic® was developed to improve the gastrointestinal tolerability of Cellcept®. The new enteric-coated, Myfortic® is presently FDA approved for the prevention of acute kidney rejection only. There is no clinical data of its use in heart transplant patients.
The primary purpose of this study is to determine whether converting from calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) therapy to sirolimus therapy will be more effective than continuing calcineurin inhibitor therapy with respect to renal function in cardiac transplant recipients with mild to moderate renal dysfunction.
This was a study to compare less intense immunosuppression with a more traditional approach. The hypothesis was that less immunosuppression will provide similar protection against rejection than typical 2-3 drug therapy.
The survival of children who have received heart transplants has greatly improved over the last ten years. One reason for this is better control over rejection. Rejection medications require a delicate balance of enough medicine to work without causing side effects. It is a goal to avoid both rejection and side effects from the anti-rejection medicines. Usually several medicines are used together to prevent rejection. One of these medicines is often Mycophenolic Acid or CellceptThis medicine has been used longer for adults than is has for children. More information is needed on using it for children. The dose is usually determined by the patient's weight or body surface area. There have been some early studies of the use of Cellcept, but none have proven a relationship between the blood level of the drug and how well it works. More also needs to be known about how this drug works with other anti-rejection drugs and how it works in boys and girls. This study will look more closely at proper dosing, how Cellcept works with other anti-rejection medications, side effects, and any differences in how this medicine works in boys and girls. All patients in the study will be receiving Cellcept and have blood levels of the drug drawn. Results of their usual treatment and testing will be recorded and evaluated for signs of rejection. All the information will be analyzed. Results of this study will be reported to transplant committees locally and nationally.
Heart transplant patients on a standard care regimen of CNI, MMF, and corticosteroids will enter the study 4-6 weeks post-transplant. At 3 months after transplant, patients will be randomized to either continue this regimen or CNI therapy will be discontinued and replaced by sirolimus therapy (in combination with MMF and corticosteroids). The effect of these 2 regimens on efficacy, safety and renal function will be evaluated.The anticipated time on study treatment is 1-2 years and the target sample size is 500+ individuals.
The purpose of this study is to collect and compare information on how and when adolescent heart transplant recipients take their prescribed medication. The investigators want to find out if regular use of 'an app' on cell phones, called the Teen Pocket PATH® (TPP), can help adolescents take their medication according to their prescribed dosing schedule. This may then help reduce complications of transplant, such as rejection. The investigators also want to find out if how adolescent heart transplant recipients take their medications affects the development of antibodies in their blood. Antibodies are small proteins in the blood that may develop after heart transplantation, and which can sometimes damage a new heart.
This is a multi-center, prospective, single cohort, observational study of pediatric heart transplant recipients designed to determine the impact of preformed versus de novo human leukocyte antigen (HLA) donor-specific antibodies (DSA), and antibodies to the self-antigens cardiac myosin and vimentin, on chronic allograft function. In addition, the investigators will explore mechanisms of action and predictors of DSA, rejection and altered pathophysiology.
All people who have a heart transplant are at risk for developing cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV). CAV means narrowing of the heart transplant vessels, which is associated with poor heart transplant function. People who develop antibodies after transplant have a higher risk of developing CAV. Infections, high cholesterol, and rejection also increase the risk of developing CAV. People who develop CAV usually have to receive another transplant.
The purpose of this study is to determine the clinical outcomes of sensitized pediatric heart transplant recipients with a positive donor-specific cytotoxicity crossmatch and to compare this group with outcomes in nonsensitized heart transplant recipients.
The primary objective of this study is to determine whether a clinically significant PK drug interaction ( a 30% difference in the AUC of MPA) exists between mycophenolate mofetil (under steady state conditions) and VGCV in renal and cardiac transplant recipients. This study will provide clinically relevant information to the transplant community. It will more clearly delineate whether a clinically significant PK drug interaction exists between mycophenolate mofetil (under steady-state conditions)and VGCV. Given the established dose/efficacy relationship of both MMF and VGCV, this study will provide improved dosing guidelines and potentially avoid adverse outcomes due to empiric dosage adjustments.
Immediate release (IR) tacrolimus peaks in the first two hours after administration. These peak levels are influenced by CYP3A5 expression with expressors requiring higher total daily doses with higher peak levels compared to non-expressors. Tacrolimus XR (Envarsus) is a once daily formulation with delayed absorption and lower peak levels while maintaining similar trough levels as seen with IR tacrolimus. A randomized trial of conversion from IR tacrolimus to tacrolimus XR in kidney transplant recipients have shown similar efficacy and adverse events between the two groups but no improvement in estimated GFR. However, urinary biomarkers of acute kidney injury associated with changes in tacrolimus dosing may be more sensitive then serum creatinine. The objective of this study is to assess renal tubular injury in heart transplant recipients who are converted from immediate release to tacrolimus XR. The hypothesis is that the delayed absorption and lower peak levels of tacrolimus XR will lead to less tubular injury and improved renal function without increased risk to the heart allograft.
The purpose of this research study is to see if a study drug called Tocilizumab will, when given with standard anti-rejection medicines, lead to better heart transplantation outcomes at 1 year after the transplant. Specifically, the investigators will evaluate whether taking tocilizumab leads to less rejection, less development of unwanted antibodies, and better heart function.
The purpose of this pilot trial, Transitioning to Adult Care (TRANSIT), is to develop and test an intervention (i.e., a standardized, tailored transition program focused on enhancing adherence) to improve outcomes for emerging adults who underwent heart transplantation as children and transfer to adult care.
The purpose of this study is to demonstrate and validate a breath test for detection of biomarkers of heart transplant rejection (Grade 2R heart transplant).