There are about 3753 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Hong Kong. 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.
Prospective, multi-centre, diagnostic cohort study investigating the accuracy of positron emission tomography with computed tomography (PET-CT), endoscopic bite-on-bite biopsies and endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) with fine-needle aspiration (FNA) for detecting residual disease after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in patients with potentially curable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).
This study is to find out the significance of gut-microbiota in acute stroke patients, including their neurological, radiological outcomes as well as their stroke mechanisms.
Through the ITF-Tier 3 project (ITS/ 237/ 11), a prototype of the posture correction girdle based on the clinical, textile science, material and ergonomics engineering analyses has been developed for preteen and teenage girls aged 10 to 13 who have the early stages of scoliosis. The girdle provides a corrective force onto the torso by the warping and elastic extension of the shoulder straps and waistband and the insertion of semi-rigid EVA padding and uses a point-pressure support system to achieve the target of posture improvement and spinal progression control with physical and psychological comfort. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the posture correction girdle, it is proposed to recruit 10 patients to take low dose x-ray (sterEOS) at QMH at supine position. Then, the patient should wear the girdle for two hours and take another x-ray at standing position. If the Cobb's angle of the patient on girdle at standing position can be same as her supine position. It can prove the effectiveness of the girdle.
The aim of this study is to correlate and identify the biochemical markers which may reflect WOI. Blood samples will be collected and endometrial biopsy will be performed at particular time points.
Background: Non-dipping hypertension(HT) (as defined by lack of decrease in systolic blood pressure (BP) by 10% during sleep) predicts cardiovascular events and mortality; however, there is a lack of evidence based treatment for non-dipping HT. While exercise is recommended to management HT, its effect on dipping status is not known. There is a lack of trials describing the relationship of exercise and blood pressure in Chinese. Method: This will be a two-arm randomized controlled trial in which Chinese non-dippers (n= 198) will be randomized to an exercise program plus usual care or to usual care by stratified randomization. The randomization sequence is blinded to the investigators and allocation is disclosed only after valid consent. The exercise program utilizes various motivational techniques to enhance exercise maintenance.
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a general health promotion (GHP) approach using information communication technology (ICT) to deliver a brief motivational interviewing (MI) to motivate smokers with chronic diseases to quit smoking. Subjects in the intervention group will receive a GHP approach using ICT (e.g., WhatsApp/WeChat) to deliver brief MI. Subjects in the control group will receive an individual face-to-face generic health advice plus a self-help booklet on smoking cessation at the time of recruitment.
Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) is an unexpected curvature of spine at teenage. AIS causes mainly unpleasant appearance, and sometime comes with pain and difficult to locate or move around. When the spinal curve, or "Cobb angle", increases with time, the investigators call it severe condition when the Cobb angle is 60 degrees or above. The severe suffering patients need to be operated to correct their spinal curve by using metallic rods and metallic screws (implants) to fix the spine. In order to avoid this surgery, the investigators use "brace", a hard fitting case, trying to control the spinal curve degree by using forces from outside. (bracing) to intervene the spinal curve progression is highly recommended for patients with particular clinical characteristics. However, bracing is not always a present experience apart from function restriction. Clinical recommendation requires the patients to brace over 20 hours everyday, which means the patients have to be "braced" around the clock. Patients' perception on being "braced" all day, apart from discomforts under bracing, self-image and mental health after bracing are also important psycho-social factors which have yet to be addressed. Based on our clinical experience, 1-2% of AIS patients, undergoing bracing or not (i.e. at observation stage), require surgical intervention due to rapid spinal progression in a short period of time. By definition, surgery will be arranged for patients with major spinal curve ≥50. The use of health-related-quality-of-life (HRQoL) questionnaires allow clinical professionals to explore many different kinds of interests on patients, including the patient's feeling on his/her medical condition and satisfaction with provided care. Scoliosis Research Society (SRS) patient outcome tool has been a well-accepted HRQoL questionnaire to look for the perception of patients with spinal problems of their status. The SRS-22 questionnaire that has been well accepted as its trustworthy on the score results and SRS-22 is good to be used in patients under different conditions across the disease. This is very important to obtain and compare the scores over time in order to look for any consistent changes. Apart from AIS patients requiring bracing, surgical cases are also very important group of patients to monitor their quality of life before and after surgery, and every follow-up visit after surgery.
Prostate gland is a clinically important male sexual organ and its main function is for the production of semen. Globally, it is the second most common cancer in men globally and is also the fifth cancer cause for death in male. Despite the improvement in the understanding of prostate cancer, the current usage of serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) as a diagnostic marker is still not ideal. Many patients with elevated PSA and then subjected to prostate biopsy were found to have no prostate cancer. Therefore, there is a need to discover new biological markers to improve the current situation in diagnosis and also management of prostate cancer. From the earlier small-scale studies, urinary spermine levels have been shown to correlate well with prostate cancer diagnosis and cancer aggressiveness. Due to its nature, it could provide a more convenient and non-invasive method for detecting prostate cancer. The purpose of this study was to collect urine samples to study the role of potential new urine diagnostic markers (including Spermine and others) for prostate cancer diagnosis.
With the increase of substance abuse over the world, substance abuse e.g. ketamine and methamphetamine related voiding dysfunction is becoming an important medical problem. However, while the clinical manifestation of the condition is becoming better defined, the underlying pathophysiology is still poorly understood. Moreover, majority of the current treatment is just based on the experience on some small case series and there is no treatment data for larger patient sample or standard recommended treatment in the literature. In order to improve the management of this condition, investigators have formulated a treatment protocol based on the current literatures on the management of voiding dysfunction and also a similar condition, interstitial cystitis / painful-bladder syndrome (IC/PBS). The protocol basically consists of the following modalities: - Basic information and education on the condition, principle of treatment and psychosocial support. - First line treatment will include a course of oral anti-inflammatory drugs (for the control of the inflammation process and pain) and anticholinergic agents (for the irritative urinary symptoms). - If these simple oral medication are found to be not effective, then further treatment will include other oral medications, such as amitriptyline and gabapentin, and some drugs that directly applied into the bladder cavity (hyaluronate) or bladder muscle (botulinum toxin). - For those patients with intractable symptoms and failed all the above treatments, surgical treatment (hydrodistension, augmentation cystoplasty) will be discussed. The purpose of this research is to assess the effectiveness of the above treatment protocol in the management of substance induced voiding dysfunction and also assess any possible adverse events related to the usage of the drugs.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is rising in prevalence, and will likely become the predominant cause of chronic liver disease in HIV-infected individuals. Metabolic factors and obesity are important risk factors for NAFLD in HIV-infected individuals. There is currently no approved effective pharmacological treatment for fatty liver disease. Therefore, lifestyle modification directing at weight loss is currently the cornerstone of treatment for fatty liver disease in the general population. Hypocaloric diets can improve fatty liver in the general population, but the most effective specific dietary interventions are yet to be elucidated. The study aims to 1. determine the efficacy of a lifestyle modification programme in inducing resolution of NAFLD in HIV-infected individuals 2. to determine the efficacy of a lifestyle modification programme in improving insulin resistance, pro-inflammatory markers, and liver fibrosis in HIV-infected individuals with fatty liver disease 3. to determine changes in intestinal microbiome secondary to the lifestyle modification programme, and the association with resolution of NAFLD in this group of patients.