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.
The current assessment of patients with acute chest pain in the Emergency Department (ED) remains lengthy with the need for serial troponin. This contributes to overcrowding in the ED and work overload of clinical staff. These are associated with increased costs and adverse patient outcomes. The use of risk scores such at HEART score can be subjective and is not useful in risk stratification for those with higher risk (age and risk factors) to Major Acute Cardiac Event (MACE). Aim of Study: This study is designed to explore whether the use of Automatic Retinal Image Analysis (ARIA) can identify patients presenting with undifferentiated chest pain without the need for serial troponin test results in order to facilitate early and safely discharge and at high-risk MACE to receive early appropriate intervention. Hypothesis: ARIA or the combination with single troponin or HEART score can identify patients with undifferentiated chest pain presenting to the ED at low- and high-risk of adverse cardiac events within 30 days and 3 months after initial presentation. Procedure: The ARIA is a non-invasive and novel technology, it will be used to access the risk of acute coronary syndrome by analyzing of fundus (back of the eye) photo taken by a fundus camera. All subjects will be arranged to take a fundus photography (both eyes) by a conventional fundus camera, and capture the retinal photo. The images will be used to develop a risk stratification method for chest pain patients presenting to ED with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The fundus photography will be taken in the Emergency Department of Prince of Wales Hospital. The process takes about 5-8 minutes. Subject may feel discomfort for a short while at the time of photo taking due to flash exposure similar to ordinary camera flash, but the procedure is neither invasive nor painful. The fundus image will then be analyzed by computer algorithm developed by the research team. Apart from that, subject's medical history, ECG findings, age and sex, risk factors, and serial troponin levels will be recorded during their ED visit in order to work out the HEART score. Their disposal outcome from the ED will also be recorded. After 30 days, subject will be phoned to follow-up whether they have been readmitted into the hospital. If the subject have been readmitted, his/her investigation findings, diagnosis, treatment, disposal outcome, and length-of-stay will be recorded. The same follow-up process will be performed once more at 3 months after the subject has joined the study in his/her inital ED visit.
This study aims to explore the effect of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) on the clinical symptomatology in Chronic Widespread Pain (CWP), to assess the acceptability, tolerability, and safety of FMT in patients with CWP, as well as explore the effect of FMT on the gut microbiome diversity in CWP. The investigators hypothesize that fecal microbiota transplantation will reduce pain intensity in patients with CWP, is acceptable, safe, and tolerable in patients with CWP, and will achieve change of gut microbiome diversity after FMT treatment.
Objective: To identify the optimal position of bronchial washing (BW) in the sequence of bronchoscopic sampling in order to maximize the ability to confirm malignancy for endoscopically visible tumours. Hypothesis to be tested: The investigators hypothesize that the diagnostic yield, with the incorporation of contemporary cytology processing techniques, of combined BW before and after endobronchial biopsy (EBBx) / bronchial brushing (BB) is higher than that of single BW after EBBx / BB. Design and subjects: This is a prospective, randomized controlled study to be conducted in the medical department of a tertiary care hospital in Hong Kong involving patients who will receive bronchoscopy. Patients will be recruited if an endoscopically visible tumour is suspected. Study instruments: Patients will be randomized into two groups. The diagnostic yield of confirming malignancy for endoscopically visible tumours, with the incorporation of contemporary cytology processing techniques, will be compared between obtaining BW before and after EBBx / BB, and obtaining single BW after EBBx / BB. Main outcome measures: Only patients with a definite cytological or histological diagnosis of lung cancer will be included in further analyses. The diagnostic yield of diagnosing lung cancer between the pre & post-EBBx/BB group and post-EBBx/BB group will be compared by the Chi-square test as an intergroup comparison.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of GV-971 in mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease.
The proposed study aims to evaluate if improving sleep could enhance the intensive lifestyle intervention for improving weight loss and glycemic control in prediabetic individuals who have insomnia with short sleep duration. A cognitive behavioral intervention for insomnia with adjustments aimed at increasing sleep duration (CBT-Sleep) will be used for this study.
One of the traditional therapies for restoring the ability of speech in aphasic patients is Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT), in which everyday phrases are taught in a singing-like manner. The suggested mechanism for speech recovery is that because of the sharing of brain resources for language and music, the regions normally reserved for singing can be trained to help compensate the speech functions originally subserved by the damaged regions. However, this therapy has primarily been applied to speakers of non-tone languages, in which prosodic features carry a more important role than pitch features in conveying meanings. It remains unknown whether MIT will be equally applicable for speakers of tone languages, in which pitch features likely play a more important role. Another uncertainty concerns whether the efficacy of MIT can be extended to patients with expressive speech impairment due to dementia. This pilot study aims to find out the efficacy of MIT for speech-impaired dementia patients in different verbal tasks. The results of this study will provide preliminary empirical evidence to establish the utility of MIT for Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong.
Methamphetamine is misuse if classified as a "likely" risk factor for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Nevertheless the actual prevalence of and a screening strategy for PAH in methamphetamine users have not been established. In this study, the prevalence of PAH will be investigated and its independent risk factors among methamphetamine users will be identified.
Orthognathic surgery is a procedure performed to correct dentofacial deformities. It involves osteotomy at the facial skeleton. Considerable pain is expected in the early recovery period. Melatonin is a hormone that is produced naturally by the body. Synthetic Melatonin is available over the counter for the management of sleeping disorder and jetlag. Clinically, Melatonin can also be used to reduce pain and analgesic consumption in patients undergoing surgery. Dexamethasone is a type of steroid. It can suppress the inflammatory response. It is an anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic drug. It is commonly used in head and neck and oral surgery for its anti-inflammatory effect to reduce swelling. This study aims evaluate the efficacy of oral melatonin in the pain reduction following orthognathic surgery. This is a double-blinded randomized controlled trial. We will recruit 87 patients who are scheduled for double-jaw orthognathic surgery to participate in this three-year study. The study lasts for 2 weeks. Participant will be randomly allocated by computer to one of the three groups. (1) Group D will receive dexamethasone only; (2) Group M will receive melatonin only; and (3) Group DM both melatonin and dexamethasone. Postoperative pain level and perioperative plasma levels of inflammatory markers and anti-oxidizing enzymes will be recorded and compared among the study groups.
In this study the investigators will determine whether using high flow oxygen in moderate-to-severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea patients following a major non cardiac surgery is more efficacious than usual care in preventing decrease in oxygen level in blood.
The investigators propose a double-blind randomised placebo-controlled study in naturally occurring influenza virus infections in the community setting to compare the impact of a short course of clarithromycin versus placebo, on the clinical course, viral shedding, immunomodulation, and the antimicrobial resistance pattern of respiratory bacterial carriage of the patients.