There are about 9403 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Switzerland. The country of the clinical trial is determined by the location of where the clinical research is being studied. Most studies are often held in multiple locations & countries.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether morning bright light therapy is an effective treatment for major depression during pregnancy compared with low-intensity placebo light therapy, when administered 60 minutes daily for 5 weeks.
Pelvic floor dysfunction in the form of pelvic organ prolapse or urinary and fecal incontinence is a sequela for some women who experience injuries during birth. It affects adult women of all ages. The life time risk for women by age of 80 years for undergoing surgical correction is shown to be 11.1 % , and 29 % of them will undergo re-operation for recurrences later on. Still, even today the biomechanics of the pelvic floor is not understood enough. The aim of our study is to investigate the biomechanical properties of the female pelvic floor, i.e. the vaginal wall, by means of clinical, sonomorphometric (ultrasound), histological and elastomechanical examinations. In principle, the elasto-mechanical properties of the vaginal wall will be examined by the new and innovative so called aspiration device, developed at the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland. This tool generates a low-pressure of -25 mbar at the vaginal wall, aspirating it under visual control by aid of an integrated video camera and therefore allowing to measure the difference of its convexity under aspiration and at rest. In case of prolapse surgery, this allows us to take a biopsy of the measured vaginal wall and analyze it at the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Zurich-Irchel by means of histological (e.g. connective tissue, extracellular matrix) and molecular biological examination. With an increasing elderly population, more and more women will need surgery for pelvic organ prolapse. While effective in restoring anatomy, sometimes by aid of meshes made out of polypropylene, the functional outcomes and quality of life are not always restored satisfactorily. This interdisciplinary project intends to add a contribution to this for our patient still bothersome situation and to help to detect risk factors for developing pelvic floor dysfunction.
Midurethral tapes are by now standard procedure in the surgical treatment of women with stress urinary incontinence. While the retropubic TVT is well documented with long-term results up to 11 years and continence rates of 90 %, the published data for the transoburator tapes (TO) cover follow-up of 3 years only. So far, all tapes establish continence effectively. Recently, the detailed 27-item Incontinence Outcome Questionnaire (IOQ) was constructed to assess patient-reported outcome and quality of life after insertion of a midurethral tape and validated for the German language. The aim of this study was to evaluate patient-reported mid- and long-term outcome after insertion of tension-free vaginal tape (TVT), transobturator sling, outside-in (TOT) and tension-free transobturator tape, inside-out (TVT-O).
The neurotoxin Botox (botulinum neurotoxin type A) is shown to be effective in the treatment of therapy refractory overactive bladder syndrome. Our data suggests a longer during efficacy than known from the use in striated muscle. The aim of our study is to analyze short- and longterm efficacy after Botox treatment and to evaluate risk factors for non-responders and side effects such as urinary retention.
High-dose chemotherapy with melphalan and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is considered standard treatment for patients with multiple myeloma. While autologous HSCT may induce remission in patients resistant to standard chemotherapy, and has been shown to lead to long-lasting disease control in a subgroup of patients, the procedure is not curative. Given enough time and in the absence of a competing cause of death, all patients eventually relapse after auto-HSCT. The only potentially curative approach currently available in the treatment of multiple myeloma (MM) is stem cell trans-plantation from an allogeneic donor. Allogeneic HSCT eradicates residual myeloma cells through T-cell mediated graft-versus-tumor effects. Allogeneic HSCT is, however, associated with significant risk of graft-versus-host disease and its use is therefore limited to younger patients with high risk dis-ease. Malignant plasma cells in multiple myeloma are also sensitive to natural killer cell lysis. Natural killer cells do not cause graft-versus-host disease, which has led to interest in their therapeutic use in patients with multiple myeloma. We have previously shown that immunomagnetic separation of a highly pure NK cell product from a leukapheresis is possible and that these cells can be expanded up to 100-fold in a GMP-compatible setting. The current study aims to test the tolerability and feasibility of infusions of in vitro expanded haploidentical NK cells for patients after melphalan 200mg/m2 high dose chemotherapy and autologous HSCT in 10 patients. If feasible, the data will provide a basis for further prospective studies.
Gastroentero-pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours (GEP-NETs) are regarded as a fairly rare disease. They are derived from the neuroendocrine system of the gastrointestinal tract and the pancreas and share common clinical features. So far, there is still uncertainty about the cell biology and mechanistic regulation of these tumours. Therefore targeted treatment is limited and management challenging. Treatment options include surgery, medical and ablative therapy, and more recently peptide-receptor radionuclide therapy. In order to better understand the characteristics of GEP-NETs and to evaluate treatment strategies, the SwissNET registry aims at the collection of data from patients presenting with a GEP-NET in Switzerland. Data will be entered prospectively and anonymized in a specifically designed database after the patient has given informed consent. All hospitals and general practitioners are invited to report on patients with a GEP-NET diagnosis and to participate to the registry. Data will be evaluated within regular time frames, focussing on types of GEP-NETs, treatment modalities and patient outcomes (e.g. mortality, hospitalisation rate), thereby contributing to the better understanding of these tumours.
This is an intervention study with patients after a non-progressive brain injury who suffer from depression. It will determine whether an integration of neuropsychological and psychotherapeutic techniques and an additional caregivers support program offers benefits to those in the process of coping with the effects of a stroke. The investigators expect the integrative neuro-psychotherapy to be more effective in the treatment of emotional distress reactions following a stroke than the structured solution focused treatment.
We propose to perform a randomized controlled patient and assessor blind trial in women between the ages of 18 to 70 years with acute uncomplicated UTI to evaluate initial symptomatic treatment for 3 days with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac (experimental intervention) against immediate antibiotic treatment with norfloxacin for 3 days (control intervention). Both interventions are followed by optional delayed antibiotic treatment with single dose fosfomycin if deemed necessary by the patients. The primary objective is to determine whether initial symptomatic treatment followed by optional delayed antibiotic treatment (experimental intervention) is non-inferior to immediate antibiotic treatment (control intervention) in terms of symptom resolution.
Resistance to antiplatelet drugs (aspirin, clopidogrel) is a recognized phenomenon with a prevalence from 17% to 35%. Resistance as detected by in vitro tests such as Multiple Electrode Aggregometry (MEA) has been shown to predict clinical therapy failure. Resistance can be caused by clinical, cellular and pharmacogenetic factors. Non compliance is suspected to be an important contributing factor. In this study, compliance will be assured with an electronical compliance monitoring system. Factors to non response will be identified to find plausible explanations when in vitro platelet aggregation inhibition is insufficient despite assured compliance. This study will help to disclose the relationship between compliance, biomarker and clinical outcome as well as to quantify the impact of non compliance to the resistance phenomenon as measured by MEA.
The purpose of this study in patients with chronic stable coronary artery disease treatable by percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is to evaluate the long-term efficacy and safety of the orally taken selective I(f)-inhibitor Ivabradine (Procoralan®, Servier Switzerland) with regard to the promotion of collateral growth.