There are about 9745 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Israel. 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.
Doppler signals can be recorded from the lung parenchyma by means of a pulsed Doppler ultrasound system incorporating a special signal processing package; i.e. the transthoracic parametric Doppler (TPD) (EchoSense Ltd., Haifa, Israel). Systemic sclerosis patients often develop pulmonary vascular disease leading to pulmonary hypertension. The TPD system may provide important insight into pulmonary blood vessels characteristics by the LDS signals that are related to pulmonary hypertension. The TPD performance in detecting PAH in SSc patients will be assessed in the study.
The aim of this research is to study how vitamin D affects various aspects of the disease process, such as inflammation, coagulation (ADAMTS13 and WVF) and miRNAs, in Diabetic kidney disease hemodialysis patients. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most common chronic diseases in nearly all countries. Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) traditionally has been referred to as diabetic nephropathy and is one of the microvascular complications of diabetes. Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) occurs in 25%-40% of patients with diabetes . Some studies have shown that the high risk of cardiovascular disease in diabetic patients with nephropathy is associated with increased plasma levels of von Willebrand factor (VWF) and decreased ADAMTS13 levels. VWF is a glycoprotein that plays an important role in platelet thrombus formation, whereas ADAMTS13 is a proteolytic enzyme that is responsible for degradation of large multimers of VWF released in the plasma by endothelial cells and platelets. Patients with both chronic kidney disease and diabetes have been shown to have higher plasma levels of VWF and decreased ADAMTS13 activity compared to healthy controls. Increased plasma levels of VWF, which reflects damage to endothelial cells and a hypercoagulability state, have been reported in atherosclerosis and diabetes. Thus, VWF and ADAMTS13 seem to be important players in the interface between diabetic nephropathy, hypercoagulability and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for DM and hypertension. The investigators previous studies showed that adding calcitriol (activated vitamin D) to endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells significantly down-regulated the inflammatory response of gene and protein expression involved in the nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NFĸB) signal transduction pathway. Micro RNA (miRNA) are short noncoding RNAs, 22-25 nucleotides long. As an endogenous production transcript, miRNAs can bind to the 3 untranslated regions (3 UTR) of its target messenger RNA (mRNA) in an imperfect, complementary manner, leading to post-transcriptional gene silencing. As a result, miRNAs can inhibit gene expression via mRNA degradation, translation inhibition, or transcriptional inhibition.The critical role of miRNAs has been established in several cellular and biologic processes, such as proliferation, differentiation, and development, and in the regulation of genes related to immune responses, cancer, and insulin secretion. MiRNA are involved in various biological processes and become novel biomarkers, modulators and therapeutic targets for diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis, and DM. Significance: The high prevalence of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients with DM on chronic hemodialysis remains a significant clinical problem and the finding of potential new biomarkers should be further investigated. This study aims to establish a link between ADAMTS13, VWF miRNA expression and vitamin D levels that can contribute to the development of new treatments for hemodialysis patients with diabetes. Methods: Each hemodialysis patient with diabetes in the investigators institute will be asked to participate in the study. After explaining the research goals, patients that agree to participate will sign an informed consent. The investigators estimate that the study will include 70 patients. Each patient will be assessed by a physician and 4 vials of blood will be taken while the patient is connected to the dialysis machine. The blood will be sent to the laboratory to check: 1) chemistry; 2) 1-25 vitamin D and 25- vitamin D levels; 3) ADAMTS13 activity and VWF; and 4) miRNA extraction. The patients will be grouped according to vitamin D levels (deficient /sufficient), and ADAMTS13, VWF and miRNA expression will be compared between the groups.
Stridor is a respiratory noise caused by partial obstruction of the large airways at the level of the pharynx, larynx and/or trachea. The second most common cause of stridor is vocal cord paralysis. Awake nasolaryngoscopyn (ANL) is regarded as the gold standard for the diagnosis of laryngomalacia. However, ANL has some drawbacks as it may cause discomfort for the patient and the laryngeal view may be obscured due to patient movement or anatomical variations. Ultrasound (US) is a noninvasive, painless, radiation free, well tolerated imaging technique. Evaluation of the dynamic characteristics of the glottis by US revealed perfect reliability in comparison to nasolryngoscopy suggesting that US can be useful in the assessment of laryngeal adduction. The investigator hypothesize that laryngeal US can be an accurate and reliable adjunct in the diagnosis of functional and anatomical causes of stridor and dysphonia in the pediatric population.
Decompression sickness syndrome (DCS) is caused by microbubbles forming in blood vessels or tissues during a reduction in environmental pressure (decompression). Bubbles have mechanical, embolic and biochemical effects with manifestations ranging from none to fatal. By reducing bubble volume and hastening inert gas elimination, recompression therapy with hyperbaric treatment remains the main therapy for DCS. The most common hyperbaric protocol used, is based on US Navy Treatment table 6, started as early as possible after surfacing. The outcome of hyperbaric therapy varies with reported complete resolution in 13%-63% of the patients suffering from severe DCS, and in 73%-100% of the patients with mild-moderate DCS. The significance of time to recompression is controversial. It has been suggested that early hyperbaric treatment improves the outcome by decreasing bubble size and avoiding further tissue injury. However, in recent studies time to recompression had very little effect on clinical recovery. Moreover, the time beyond which hyperbaric treatment isn't effective has not been determined yet. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical outcome of delayed hyperbaric treatment to divers who referred to tertiary care hospital hyperbaric unit, more than 48 hours after surfacing. The clinical outcome of the delayed hyperbaric treatments was compared to early treatments given at the same hyperbaric unit.
Doppler signals can be recorded from the lung parenchyma by means of a pulsed Doppler ultrasound system incorporating a special signal processing package; i.e. the transthoracic parametric Doppler (TPD) (EchoSense Ltd., Haifa, Israel). Systemic sclerosis patients often develop pulmonary vascular disease leading to pulmonary hypertension. The TPD system may provide important insight into pulmonary blood vessels characteristics by the LDS signals that are related to pulmonary hypertension. The TPD performance in detecting PAH in SSc patients will be assessed in the study.
Ischemic stroke of the spinal cord is a rare disease accounting for about 1% of all ischemic events in the central nervous system (CNS). In most cases the consequences are catastrophic, with a high rate of severe functional disability and mortality rate up to 30%. Ischemic stroke of the spinal cord can arise from: 1. Dissection of the aorta. 2. Aneurism in the aorta. 3. Atherosclerotic disease of the aorta or vertebral arteries. 4. Spinal surgeries. 5. Spinal AVM. 6. Embolism from cardiac origin. 7. Occlusion of radicular artery. Onset is usually sudden, reaching maximal intensity in hours until the patient becomes paralyzed in two or in all four limbs. In most cases the damage is in the Anterior Spinal Artery (ASA). The disease is expressed with motor weakness accompanied by disturbance of temperature and superficial sensation, urinary retention or bowel disorder, with preserved position and vibration sense. The differential diagnosis of ischemic spinal cord includes diseases such as acute myelitis of the spinal cord or acute demyelinating polyneuropathy like Guillan Barree Syndrome (GBS). Therefore in order to reach the appropriate diagnosis in most cases an urgent MRI of the spinal cord is necessary upon arrival in the emergency department. One of the treatments to acute ischemic stroke is providing thrombolysis. As tested and validated in numerous studies for ischemic events in the brain, until today no validated study in ischemic spinal stroke using thrombolysis has been completed.
The purpose of this study is to characterize the natural history and clinical management of Acute Hepatic Porphyria (AHP) patients with recurring attacks.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of FDX104 Antibiotic Foam in the prevention of EGFRI skin toxicity in cancer patients receiving Cetuximab or Panitumumab.
Patients who present with fragility fractures are consistently under-evaluated and under-treated for underlying osteoporosis. This point of care represents a lost opportunity to prevent future fractures. The medical field treats the fracture as if the fall is the problem, but bone quality is the real problem. Studies have consistently shown that the recommendations of the International Osteoporosis Foundation and World Health Organization are not being followed. Orthopedics treats the patients for their fractures and primary care physicians focus on general health but no one is taking responsibility for bone health. Strategies to convince primary care to assume care have not succeeded. On the other hand, strategies where orthopedics takes some responsibility have shown success. This prospective 2-arm study will evaluate the success of effort by an academic orthopedic department in osteoporosis evaluation and treatment. We hypothesize that with greater effort by the orthopedic department, the better the adherence to standards of care. A cost benefit analysis will be made in parallel.
Cystic fibrosis related diabetes (CFRD) is a common co-morbidity in patients with CF. The underlying pathophysiology of cystic fibrosis related diabetes (CFRD) is still a matter of investigation. In addition to localized tissue damage developing similar to that of the exocrine pancreas, other mechanisms may be involved. We have shown that a potential contributing factor to the patho-physiology of CFRD may be an abnormal gut derived hormonal profile, specifically of lower incretin hormone responses, prior to development of CFRD. We propose that an altered incretin response, probably due to impaired interaction of nutrients with the gut mucosa due to thickened secretions, may play a role in the development of the disease. Specifically, low GIP and GLP-1, may explain the poor β-cell function observed in these patients prior to CFRD appearance. These incretins have known trophic effects on β-cells, and thus their lower levels may contribute to the development of quantitative as well as qualitative defects in β-cell function and thus may lead to the development of CFRD. Thus, increasing levels of these incretins using a DPP-IV inhibitor may improve glucose metabolism and delay/prevent the development of CFRD. We hypothesize that Saxagliptin will increase the oDI compared to placebo and will thus provide relative protection from diabetes development and in addition we expect that Saxagliptin will lead to overall increased insulin concentrations and thus shift the metabolic milieu to a more anabolic state. This will manifest as weight gain and reduction in inflammation.