View clinical trials related to Cholangitis.
Filter by:PSC is a progressive liver disease without effective medical treatment. There is often co-existent ulcerative colitis. Probiotics (bacterial food supplements) have been shown to benefit patients with ulcerative colitis. In the current protocol potential beneficial effects of probiotics on liver biochemistry and liver related symptoms as pruritus are being assessed in 12 PSC patients in a randomized controlled cross over study (3 months probiotics, 1 one wash-out and 3 months placebo).
The purpose of this research is to study body materials like blood proteins as well as white blood cell and liver cellular RNA in individuals with liver diseases such as chronic viral hepatitis with or without hepatoma and autoimmune liver disease. Presently it is not understood how infection with chronic viral hepatitis or autoimmune liver disease damages the liver. This research study enroll patients with either chronic viral hepatitis with or without hepatoma or autoimmune liver disease. The purpose of this study is to find the genes that are expressed in both the circulating white blood cells and the liver of patients with varying degrees of liver damage of different causes. Genes are biological messengers some of which determine how the body responds to injury. We anticipate that results from Differential Gene Expression (DGE) analysis will allow us to make predictions about likelihood of disease progression and/or response to treatment. In addition we will test the blood for markers of injury. The blood collected will be prepared differently from the liver tissue. We will use technologies to express pure proteins and then we will investigate the functions of these proteins. Nearly all drugs act on proteins, not genes, so understanding proteins is the key to really effective new medicines. Similarly the first signs of ill health appear in changes to the body’s blood proteins, making them the most sensitive diagnostic indicators. The studies we plan are called proteomics. We will later correlate the patterns of gene expression in both circulating white blood cells and the liver tissue with clinical outcome and patterns of proteins measured in blood and we hope to gain an understanding of how the disease process occurs, which may in turn help us to make more precise diagnoses and develop new forms of treatment. These techniques that we use are still experimental and so we do not yet know if they will be helpful in monitoring changes which may help us to predict the potential severity of your liver disease or even if they can be used to indicate who will best respond to treatment.
This is a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial of high dose ursodiol versus placebo for patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). The average duration of follow-up will be approximately five years with important clinical endpoints such as death, eligibility for liver transplantation, changes in histology and cholangiogram as well as liver biochemistries and quality of life data collected.
OBJECTIVES: I. Assess the safety and effectiveness of budesonide in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis or primary biliary cirrhosis experiencing a suboptimal response to ursodeoxycholic acid. II. Estimate the efficacy of this therapy in these patient groups as a means of evaluating the feasibility of a long-term randomized trial.
OBJECTIVES: I. Evaluate the effects of cladribine (2-chlorodeoxyadenosine; 2-CdA) on biochemical, radiologic, and histologic parameters in patients with early stage primary sclerosing cholangitis.