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.
Inflammatory synaptopathy is a prominent pathogenic process in multiple sclerosis (MS) induced by imbalanced immune system homeostasis. Its persistence causes excitotoxic neuronal damage, leading to motor and cognitive deficits. Although many advances have been made in MS treatment, the development of effective strategies for managing disease progression driven by excitotoxic synaptic dysfunctions is of great significance. Gut dysbiosis is commonly associated with both MS and obesity and high-fat diet (HFD) can exacerbate disease by acting on gut microbiota. Since gut microbiota can shape the immune response and brain functions, we propose to target gut dysbiosis by dietary supplementation of prebiotics and probiotics (Pre-Pro) to treat synaptopathy in both human and experimental model of MS, even when exacerbated by HFD. Overall, this project aims at unveiling the anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective pathways activated by Pre-Pro supplementation to modulate the immune-synaptic axis.
In 2015 the Italian Ministry of Health invited the Cardiac Research Hospitals of Italy to constitute a Cardiac Network. The aim of the network is to facilitate and promote scientific and technological research in the setting of cardiovascular diseases and related risk factors. IRCCS (Scientific Research and Cure Institute) Policlinico San Donato is the responsible hospital for cardiac valve pathologies and has been appointed the leader for the present study. The non-calcific aortic valve stenosis in the elderly is one of the most frequent cardiovascular diseases. Different therapeutic options are available for treating this condition: medical therapy and follow-up, conventional surgery (including sternotomy and employment of mechanical, biological, or sutureless valves), and transcatheter valve implantation. The uncertainty about the advantages and limitations of the different approaches is still very high. In this panorama, the concept of mere survival should be replaced by a broader vision of the quality of life. The aim of the present study is to build an Italian registry of aortic valve stenosis in the elderly (age >= 65 years) who, following the current guidelines, would receive a biological aortic valve replacement. The following topics will be evaluated: (i) the results of the different therapeutical options; (ii) the determination of the choice criteria for the different therapeutical options and the verification of the appropriateness, economic and organizational impact for each of them; (iii) the evaluation of the quality of life modifications, periprocedural and at a long follow-up; (iv) the health technology assessment of the applied therapies.
The primary objective of the present study will be to evaluate, in obese patients, the blood flow response in the femoral artery in response to passive limb movements, taken as a biomarker of a possible limitation of the peripheral vascular-endothelial-microvascular function. The values will be compared with those obtained in normal subjects, in patients with cardiovascular (Gilford & Richardson 2017) or respiratory diseases (Ives et al. 2020), and in healthy subjects subjected to bed rest (Zuccarelli et al. 2020). The data of the recruited obese patients will be obtained at the beginning and the end of the standard rehabilitation period (including calorie reduction interventions, physical exercise, and psychological counseling) conducted over 3 weeks at the Division of Auxology, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Piancavallo, Italy. A secondary objective will be to evaluate any changes following the rehabilitation program on the patients' endothelial-peripheral-vascular-microvascular function. The data obtained will also be evaluated in comparison with hematochemical and molecular indices for evaluating the endothelial function, as well as with standard parameters for the overall functional evaluation of the oxidative function and the ability to sustain exercise ("peak" O2 consumption during exercise, thresholds anaerobic diseases.
This observational study aims to improve the accuracy of the report of the echocardiographic study, making it more consistent with the current international guidelines and reducing the diagnostic mistakes in patients undergoing clinically -indicated echocardiography. The main questions it aims to answer are: - can the addition of automated diagnostic algorithms help to improve the overall accuracy of the echocardiographic report?
It is unclear why humans typically swing their arms during gait. To date, the debate on how to arm swing comes about (i.e. whether it is caused by accelerations of the shoulder girdle or muscular activity) is still going on. There needs to be consensus on whether the arm swing is actively controlled or merely passive and on why humans swing their arms during walking (i.e. what the purpose of arm swing is, if any). Suggested reasons include minimising energy consumption, optimising stability, and optimising neural control. Pathologies such as hemiplegia after stroke, Parkinson's disease, Cerebral Palsy, Spinal Cord Injury, and Multiple Sclerosis may directly affect arm swing during gait. Emerging evidence indicates that including arm movements in gait rehabilitation may be beneficial in restoring interlimb coordination and decreasing energy expenditure. This project hypothesises that the arms swing, at least at low and intermediate walking speeds, reflects the body's Center of Mass (CoM) accelerations. Arm swing may thus depend mainly upon the system's intrinsic mechanical properties (e.g., gravity and inertia). In this perspective, the CoM is seen as moving relative to the upper limbs rather than the other way around. The contribution of major lower limb joints, in terms of power injected into the body motion, will be simultaneously explored. The study aims to investigate the mechanism and functions of arm swinging during walking on a force treadmill. To simulate asymmetric walking, healthy subjects will be asked to walk with a toes-up orthosis to induce claudication and asymmetry in ankle power. In this way, it will be possible to highlight the correlation among arm swinging, ankle power, and the acceleration of the CoM in a 3D framework. In addition, subjects affected by unilateral motor impairments will be asked to walk on the force treadmill to test the experimental model and highlight significant differences in the kinematic parameters of the upper limbs. The question of whether arm swing is actively controlled or merely passive and the relationship between arm swinging and the total mechanical energy of the CoM will be faced. Asymmetric oscillations of the upper limb will be related to dynamic asymmetries of the COM motion, and of the motion of lower limbs. In addition, cause-effect relationships will be hypothesized. Finally, the dynamic correlates of upper limb oscillations will make the clinical observation an interpretable clinical sign applicable to rehabilitation medicine. Results from the present study will also foster the identification of practical rehabilitation exercises on gait asymmetries in many human nervous diseases.
This study is investigating the safety and efficacy of eneboparatide (AZP-3601) in patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism (cHP). During the first 24 weeks of the trial, participants will be randomized to receive eneboparatide or placebo. Study treatment is blinded: patients and doctors will not know which group each patient has been randomized to. All patients will start with a fixed dose of study treatment (eneboparatide or placebo), administered subcutaneously with a pre-filled pen. Study treatment will be individually titrated. After completion of the first 24 weeks, patients will be treated in the open label extension part of the study for 28 weeks. During this phase, all patients (including patients that were in the placebo group) will receive eneboparatide.
The primary objective of the study is to compare, in a cohort of obese subjects with PWS hospitalized at the Division of Auxology, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Piancavallo (VB), Italy, the age acceleration calculated at study entry (T0) with the age acceleration measured at the end of a 3-week multidisciplinary metabolic rehabilitation program (T1). Secondary objectives are to correlate the biological age with the anthropometric characteristics (with particular reference to the body composition), the glycometabolic picture, the main parameters and cardiovascular risk factors, the therapy (previous and concomitant) with rhGH and the cognitive function (mainly, the IQ).
The present study recruits female patients aged 45-65 years with a diagnosis of Systemic Sclerosis according to the EULAR/ACR 2013 criteria and age and gender-matched healthy control subjects. The purpose of the study is to investigate the possible role of Klotho and other cytokines involved in the osteoimmunological control of bone turnover as a possible determinant of the microvascular damage and fibrosis observed in SSc patients
Bariatric surgery is the ideal therapeutic strategy for patients with severe obesity when lifestyle interventions have failed. Unfortunately, weight recovery after surgery affects one third of patients and is due to several factors, such as recovery of incorrect eating behaviour, reduction of physical activity or hormonal factors. Dilation of gastro-jejunal anastomosis is one of the main causes as it determines reduction of satiety in the patient and consequent increase of the portions of food consumed. In these cases it is necessary to make a review of gastro-jejunal anastomosis and to reduce surgical complications in recent years has been developed a method that allows the execution of sutures through a totally endoscopic way (OverStitch™ Endoscopic Suturing System). Literature studies to assess hunger-satiety in patients undergoing bariatric surgery, suggest that surgery results in weight loss due to a series of changes in gastrointestinal physiology which impact on the feeling of hunger-satiety, and on the modification of the secretion of hormones involved in the regulation of gastric emptying such as the reduction of ghrelin secretion and the increase in postprandial cholecystokinin and GLP-1. There are no data in the literature on satiety in patients in previous bariatric surgery with weight recovery secondary to dilation of the gastro-jejunal anastomosis. There are various methods to assess satiety, most of which are invasive and difficult to perform in routine clinical settings. A recently proposed method to evaluate the perception of satiety and validated on healthy adults, is the Water Load Tests (WLTs). The test consists in making the subject drink a quantity of water until he feels "pleasantly" full. The volume of water ingested is a valid indicator of the subjective feeling of satiety. The aim of yhe study is to assess perceived satiety (measured by Water Load Test) after intervention of Sleeve Gastrectomy or a revision surgery with OverStitch™ Endoscopic Suturing System in obese individuals suitable for bariatric surgery
The goal of this observational study is to test the usability of the SOSteniamoci platform, culturally adapted from the Lithuanian context, for informal caregivers in Italy. The main goals were to (1) collect qualitative and quantitative data on usability and (2) identify usability problems. A balanced gender-age sample of 10 individuals meeting the inclusion criteria was consecutively recruited online. The think-aloud testing method, the system usability scale, and an ad hoc semi-structured interview were employed to determine the overall system usability.