There are about 21062 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Italy. 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.
In the last years research has pointed out potential mechanisms of pathogenesis in ALS including lack of degradation of abnormally accumulated proteins inside motor neurons, and an unbalanced function of the immune system leading to the prevalence of a neurotoxic function over neuroprotection. These two mechanisms contribute to ALS progression hence representing important therapeutic targets to modify disease expression. With a phase II clinical trial the investigators aim to study the biological response in ALS treated with Rapamycin, to obtain predictive information for a larger study. Eight Italian Centres will enroll 63 patients; treatment will be double blinded to patients and physicians, and will last 18 weeks.Follow up will be carried out for 36 months (total duration: 54 weeks).
The objective of this observational study is to evaluate the growth of peri-implant soft tissues using an heterologous dermal membrane graft (group A) or a 2 mm healing screw used as a vertical support of the limbs (group B) positioned at the moment of surgical insertion of the implant.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab plus epacadostat, pembrolizumab monotherapy, and the EXTREME regimen (cetuximab + cisplatin or carboplatin + 5-fluorouracil) as first-line treatment for recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
The aim of this study is to investigate the possible effects that a motor limitation at the peripheral level might have on the ability to visually discriminate others' actions. Previous literature has shown that specific motor skills (motor expertise) facilitate the visual discrimination of domain-specific actions, and that these motor experts' superior abilities might be mediated by areas not only responsible for the visual recognition of movements (as it happens in non-expert subjects) but also involved in motor planning. Similarly, impairment in the motor system due to neurological damage modulates not only the ability to perform movements but also the ability to discriminate and predict the temporal course of observed actions. Based on these findings, it has been hypothesized that the motor representations of gait, despite being a hyper-learned motor pattern, might be subjected to modification as a result of an impairment of walking caused by a peripheral functional limitation in the lower limbs as the one characterizing orthopaedic patients who underwent a surgical operation for total knee arthroprosthesis. In this protocol, patients are thus required to perform visual discrimination tasks based on the observation of movements performed with either the upper or lower limbs, and their performance is expected to correlated with their functional impairments in movement execution. These results would indicate that the (in)ability to perform a movement might have an impact on its representation at the central level and on internal motion simulation capabilities, which also influence the ability to visual discriminate others' actions through action-perception transfer: this would suggest that rehabilitation in orthopaedic patients should take into account (and restore) such a central impairment in motor representations.
Recent evidences suggest that zoledronate, one of the most used bisphosphonates (BPs) in the clinical setting for the prevention and treatment of bone metastasis in cancer patients, may have antitumor activity in early breast cancer. The ABCSG-12 clinical trial have reported improved Disease Free Survival (DFS) and Overall Survival (OS) in mostly chemotherapy naive premenopausal patients after a 3-years of treatment with zoledronate (zol) and ovarian-suppression therapy. The ZO-FAST study showed better DFS for immediate use of zol in postmenopausal patients receiving adjuvant hormonal treatment. Preliminary evidences support the role of zoledronate also in neoadjuvant setting reporting better responses in cases of treatment with zol and chemotherapy (cht) compared with cht alone. The anticancer mechanism of action of BPs still remains not well understood. Basically, BPs are mevalonate (MVA) pathway inhibitors and one of the most intriguing hypothesis supporting their anticancer activity relies on the modulation of the mevalonate downstream metabolism. Selected cancer subtypes may present a more pronounced mevalonate activity able to confer an aggressive phenotype. It has been shown that a mutant p53 acts as promoter of MVA upregulation. One of the most important biological implications of MVA pathway upregulation in cancer cells is the aberrant activation of the Hippo pathway, a molecular axis with a central role in carcinogenesis. Two Hippo pathway related transcriptional coactivators, YAP and TAZ, promote tissue proliferation and the self-renewal of normal and cancer stem cells, and incite metastasis. Due to the strong interplay between the MVA and Hippo pathways, the modulation of MVA axis has deep impact on the function of YAP/TAZ as transcriptional regulators of tumour growth. These findings implicate the mevalonate pathway as a therapeutic target for selected tumors with up-regulation of these pathways. Preclinical and clinical evidences suggest that BPs are able to interfere with YAP/TAZ expression, via MVA pathway. This kind of activity may be part of the mechanism of action of BPs as antitumor drugs. Others medications are able to modulate the MVA pathway. Statins, a first-class of lipid-lowering medications that inhibit the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase, inhibit the sterol biosynthesis via the mevalonate pathway. A possible anti-tumor effect of statins can be predicted with the same mechanism of action described for BPs, through the interference with the MVA axis. Actually, the anti-tumor activity of statins have been investigated in different retrospective analyses. In breast cancer a more robust signal has been retrospectively reported and prospective studies have enquired the exquisite antitumor activity of statins in pre-operative breast cancer setting. From above, the clinical trial herein proposed aims to investigate the antitumoral clinical activity of zoledronate (zol) and statins (atorvastatin) combination, in patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). The primary objective of the study is to address in patients with TNBC the antitumor activity of pre-operative standard chemotherapy associated or not with zoledronate (zol) and atorvastatin measured through its effect on YAP and TAZ immunochemistry (IHC) expressions, which are considered co-primary objectives. The primary clinical objective is to assess the anti-tumor activity of the combination of neoadjuvant standard cht associated with zol and atorvastatin, measured by the proportion of pCR obtained after neoadjuvant treatment in patients with TNBC. Secondary objectives are: 1) to evaluate the anti-tumor activity of pre-operative standard chemotherapy associated or not with zol and atorvastatin according to high/low p53 levels 2) to address the efficacy of neoadjuvant cht associated or not with zol/atorvastatin combo in terms of disease free survival and overall survival); 3) to study the safety profile of study treatments; 4) to investigate the treatment modulation of YAP and TAZ gene expression (RNA-Seq) in tumor tissues collected at the time of core-biopsy and definitive surgery; 5) to address the modulation of Ki67expression by IHC in the FFPE diagnostic core biopsy tumor block and in the tumor tissue collected at surgery. Patients fulfilling the eligibility criteria will be randomized to receive standard anthracyclines/taxanes based neoadjuvant cht (ARM A) or the combination of zol and atorvastatin associated with the above mentioned neoadjuvant cht (ARM B).
TNBC, defined by the lack of immunohistochemical staining for oestrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and lack of overexpression or amplification of HER2/neu, has an aggressive biological behaviour, marked by increased risk of recurrence and poorer survival compared with hormone receptor-positive subtypes. The key points for the rationale of the present study are: 1. Despite different efforts for improving the outcome of TNBC patients, the median distant-disease free interval for relapsed triple-negative breast cancer is about 1-2 years, and the median survival for metastatic TNBC is approximately one year. 2. International guidelines currently recommend polychemotherapy instead of sequential single agents as first-line treatment in this subgroup of patients, but no data is available at the moment regarding the optimal duration of chemotherapy. 3. There is growing evidence to suggest that platinum-based therapy may have a role in both advanced and early-stage TNBC, though results are not definitive. Three randomized phase II neoadjuvant trials have been reported, two of which demonstrated an improvement in pathological complete response (pCR) rates when carboplatin is added to anthracycline and taxane-based chemotherapy, though this pCR improvement came at the cost of an increase in toxicity. Definitive results from phase III trials demonstrating improvement in long-term outcomes such as event-free and overall survival are not yet available, and it remains unclear how to optimally incorporate platinums into neoadjuvant therapy, as toxicity is enhanced when platinum is incorporated as an add-on to standard combination chemotherapy backbones. A randomized phase III trial comparing cisplatin plus gemcitabine to paclitaxel plus gemcitabine has been published recently. After a median follow-up of 16.3 months in the cisplatin plus gemcitabine group and 15.9 months in the paclitaxel plus gemcitabine group, the hazard ratio for progression-free survival was 0.692 (95% CI 0•523-0•915; pnon-inferiority<0•0001, superiority=0•009. Thus cisplatin plus gemcitabine was both non-inferior to and superior to paclitaxel plus gemcitabine. Median progression-free survival was 7.7 months (95% CI 6.2-9.3) in the cisplatin plus gemcitabine group and 6.5 months (5.8-7.2) in the paclitaxel plus gemcitabine group. 4. In both early and advanced disease settings, response rates appear to be influenced by germ line BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status, and BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation status has emerged as an important potential biomarker for platinum therapy. Outside of the BRCA mutant setting, there is certainly good reason to believe that there are patients with sporadic TNBC who stand to benefit greatly from a platinum-based approach. Tumour-based assays that detect levels of genomic scarring caused by the accumulation of DNA damage over time secondary to underlying DNA repair defects, such as the Myriad HRD assay, have potential to identify non carriers of BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations with "BRCA-like" breast cancer, who may respond to DNA repair- targeted treatment strategies, such as platinum agents. One of the most promising way to improve clinical outcome in poor-risk patients is represented by maintenance therapy with a non-cross resistant regimen after an induction treatment, until disease progression. Nevertheless, the main limit to such a strategy is the choice of chemotherapy agents, considering that patients could be treated for a long period of time The results of the VICTOR-1 study was recently published, the aim of this study was the determination of the maximum tolerated dose of oral metronomic schedule of vinorelbine (VNR) in combination with fixed doses of capecitabine (CAPE), as well as to confirm the safety profile of the combination in a cohort of HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer patients. The results demonstrated a lower incidence of hematological grade 3-4 adverse events (1.1%), in comparison to what published in other series, using the standard schedules of the two drugs. The present study is designed to select the best arm between oral metronomic schedule of vinorelbine (VNR) and combination of oral metronomic schedule VNR with fixed doses of capecitabine (CAPE) as maintenance therapy in advanced TNBC patients responders after an induction treatment.
The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effectiveness of different alveolar preservation procedures performed at the time of extraction of the first or second upper molar in avoiding a maxillary sinus elevation or at least limiting the size, to allow the insertion of dental implants. The residual bone height will be radiographically evaluated on the sinus sinus floor at the time of extraction and after 6 months by comparing the cases where alveolar preservation is performed using a nanocrystalline synthetic hydroxyapatite graft (group A) with cases where the procedure of alveolar preservation is performed using bovine collagen sponge (group B).
The objective of this observational study is the radiographic evaluation of marginal bone remodeling after surgical implant insertion in an immediate loading all-on-four technique with trans-sinusal titanium implants, correlating the gingival thickness and the height of the implant prosthetic stump with the proportion of the abovementioned marginal bone remodeling.
multi center study with randomized controlled trial design, split mouth
Subtalar fusion is commonly performed in post-traumatic subtalar osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, posterior tibial tendon dysfunction, tarsal coalition and primary subtalar osteoarthritis. Patients with osteoarthritis or severe dysfunction involving both the ankle and the subtalar joint may benefit from an tibiotalocalcaneal fusion (TTC) or an ankle replacement and subtalar fusion. With the development of new prosthetic designs and of surgical techniques, total ankle replacements (TAR) became a reasonable alternative to fusion with functional and quality of life improvements. A gait analysis of patients that underwent TAR and simultaneous subtalar fusion allows to study with precision and reliability the ankle range of motion (ROM). On the contrary, in healthy subjects or in patients that underwent isolated TAR this is not possible because the ankle ROM is influenced by the ROM of the subtalar joint in such a way that it is not possible to analyze the two joints separately. Also, excluding the role of the subtalar joint, it is possible to accurately analyze and compare the consequences on ankle kinematics of two different prosthetic designs.