There are about 25435 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in United Kingdom. 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.
Each year in the UK, approximately 150,000 people have a heart attack when the blood supply to their heart is compromised. As a result, affected regions of the heart can become diseased and scarred. In a healthy person, electrical waves propagate across the heart in a regulated pattern which triggers contraction to pump blood around the body. The scar tissue that forms as a result of a heart attack can disrupt the propagation of the electrical waves. If significant disruptions occur, blood cannot be pumped out of the body effectively, leading to sudden death. Ablation therapy aims to eliminate areas of diseased tissue that cause disruption to the heart rhythm, by applying radiofrequency using catheters inserted into the heart. The most accurate techniques used to locate the region to ablate require the induction of dangerous heart rhythms, which are only inducible in about 65% of people. Pace mapping is a technique used to locate regions to ablate, which can be performed during normal heart rhythm. ECG data, which records electrical signals from the heart, is collected when the patient has an abnormal heart rhythm. From this template ECG, a clinician can tell the approximate location of the diseased tissue. A catheter is directed to that location, the heart stimulated, and another ECG, called the paced ECG is recorded. If the paced ECG matches the template ECG, it is assumed that the heart was paced in the location that requires ablation. Current ablation techniques are difficult, time consuming, and inaccurate. As a result, the procedure may work in only half of all patients, and result in unnecessary damage to healthy tissue, leading to later impairment of heart function. The CPS project's overall goal is to increase the success rates of ablation therapy by improving the accuracy and efficiency of locating the optimal region of tissue to eliminate during the pace mapping procedure. Increasing ablation therapy success rates will mean that patients will be unlikely to suffer from future heart rhythm disorders as a result of their heart attack, increasing the life expectancy of heart attack patients. Excess damage caused to the heart as a result of unnecessary ablation lesions will be limited, decreasing the likelihood of future complications. In addition, dangerous heart rhythms do not need to be induced in the patient, significantly decreasing the risk of death during the treatment.
The aim of this randomised parallel trial is to compare the efficacy of Glycosaminoglycan layer replacement against cystoscopy and urethral dilatation in the treatment of recurrent urinary tract infection in pre-menopausal women. The women will be randomised to 1 of 2 arms.Arm 1 patients will receive standard treatment from the Urologists. This will involve rigid cystoscopy and urethral dilatation, under general anaesthetic. Arm 2 patients will receive standard treatment from the Gynaecologists.
Firstly, this study aims to understand how cardiac fibrosis mediated by inflammatory microvascular disease evolves during advanced chronic kidney disease and end stage renal failure and importantly how this changes with commencement on renal replacement therapy (haemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis) using sequential cardiac MRI imaging. This method of imaging is non-invasive, provides significantly more data than echocardiography, is reproducible and accurate, has been validated in numerous studies and does not involve exposure to ionising radiation. Secondly, this study aims to examine the changes in monocyte subsets and biochemical profile in peripheral blood prior to, during and after commencement on renal replacement therapy. The investigators hypothesis would be that renal failure causes alteration in monocyte subset phenotype resulting in increased circulating inflammatory monocytes (human CD14high CD16high), initiating pro-inflammatory cytokine expression and thereby accelerating inflammatory cardiovascular disease and development of myocardial fibrosis.
The study is evaluating the effect of combining Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) with standard Physiotherapy treatment in patients admitted to a neurological rehabilitation unit with Pusher syndrome (PS). Patients will be randomised to receive standard Physiotherapy treatment or standard treatment with GVS. Perceived verticality data will also be collected and analysed on age-matched controls. This data will be used to compare these results with the patients with PS. The investigators hypothesis that GVS and standard Physiotherapy treatment will lead to a greater improvement in functional ability and awareness of perceived verticality compared to standard Physiotherapy alone.
This is a randomized study for the prevention and acute treatment of migraine using open label nVNS and standard of care versus standard of care. .
Friedreich ataxia is the most frequent early-onset autosomal recessive hereditary ataxia. It is caused by a pathological expansion of a GAA repeat in the first intron of the frataxin gene (FXN) and results in decreased levels of FXN protein. FXN deficiency results in a relentlessly progressive neurodegenerative condition which frequently presents around puberty. Patients gradually lose coordination, become dysarthric and are frequently wheel-chair bound as adolescents. There is no disease modifying therapy and many patients die prematurely of cardiomyopathy. It was subsequently found that the FXN gene is silenced at the chromatin level by the formation of heterochromatin and that this heterochromatin formation can be antagonized by histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) (Chan et al., 2013). A recent proof-of-concept clinical study on ten patients with Friedreich ataxia demonstrated that FXN levels can be restored to those seen in asymptomatic carriers using the class III HDACi nicotinamide at a dose that is well tolerated by patients (Libri et al., 2014). Since carriers are asymptomatic, this degree of restoration of FXN expression might be expected to halt disease progression. Nicotinamide readily crosses the blood brain barrier and has previously been given at high doses for long periods to normal individuals without serious adverse effects (Gale et al., 2004; Knip et al., 2000). This study will be the first to provide clinical evidence for the efficacy and safety of nicotinamide in patients with Friedreich´s ataxia.
This is a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover trial, to test the hypothesis that RDD1609 is effective in treating idiopathic pruritus ani.
The EARLY trial is a phase IV, investigator initiated, international, multicentre study that will investigate if early use of alirocumab 150mg plus atorvastatin 80mg (enhanced care) will have a greater effect than atorvastatin 80mg (standard care) on the reduction of LDL-C at 2-weeks after a myocardial infarction (MI), in patients who start treatment within 24 hours of symptom onset. A secondary goal is to assess the effects of enhanced care when compared to standard care which is either atorvastatin alone or atorvastatin plus ezetimibe, (the latter added at 4 weeks if LDL-C is ≥ 70mg/dL (1.8mmol/L), on the proportion of patients achieving an LDL-C goal of < 50mg/dL (1.29 mmol/L) at 7 weeks after an MI.
Bronchiectasis is a common chronic lung condition where patients have permanent airways damage leading to daily symptoms of cough, sputum production and recurrent respiratory tract infections. Preliminary studies in our research group have found a severe deficiency of the immune system as a rare cause of bronchiectasis (called immunoglobulin G subclass 2 deficiency) and occurs in about 1 in 20 bronchiectasis patients. The pilot work shows that these patients have more chest infections and their lung function deteriorates more rapidly. There are no trials to date to guide doctors to decide whether we should replace this deficiency from donated blood or not. The aim with treatment is to prevent disease progression and avoid the need for long term antibiotics. This trial will help us understand how this treatment works and its acceptability to patients. This study will help us decide whether investigators should pursue future formalised trials in many centres throughout the UK and how investigators should evaluate such a treatment. We are looking to recruit 20 patients to this study 10 of which will receive weekly replacement therapy and the remaining 10 will receive standard care.
Stroke is a significant medical problem with 150,000 events occurring per year in the UK and incurring healthcare costs of £4 billion per year. Fifty percent of strokes will leave a lasting disability on first manifestation and 10-15% (roughly 16,500 per year) are unheralded ischaemic events in previously asymptomatic Carotid artery disease. Carotid Artery Disease is caused by the formation of an atherosclerotic plaque in the vessel. Stroke or TIA occurs when plaque or adherent thrombus breaks off and embolises to the brain, blocking off its blood supply. Hence, a carotid plaque is said to be symptomatic if it has caused a Stroke or TIA in the territory of the brain supplied by that vessel in the previous six months. Currently, the degree of stenosis (narrowing) of the artery by doppler ultrasound is the main assessment performed. Doppler ultrasound measures stenosis and elevation of blood flow velocity in the artery prior to surgical intervention. However, it has been shown that the degree of stenosis is a poor predictor of stroke as many asymptomatic patients have severe stenosis and many symptomatic patients have moderate stenosis. Stenosis is a two dimensional assessment of a 3-D structure. Other features of the plaque should be considered including the volume of the carotid plaque and its constituents. Carotid Plaque Volume has been measured in 339 individuals, with plaque volume being higher in symptomatic than asymptomatic individuals. In this study, plaque volume did not correlate with stenosis degree. No studies have been conducted measuring the change in carotid plaque volume and morphology following a stroke. This pilot study will perform serial duplex scans on recently symptomatic individuals over a 12 week period and observe the changes in Plaque Volume and morphology. This will attempt to prove that carotid plaque volume is a better predictor of stroke than stenosis. The investigators will also aim to identify other plaque features that may have an important role in predicting stroke risk. Documenting the timescale of change in plaque volume will aid us in defining appropriate timescales for treating the symptomatic population and when those having medical management's risk has returned to baseline. Observing the change in plaque immediately after stroke will improve our knowledge of the changes in plaques that lead to symptoms and may in the future help us predict which patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis need operation.