There are about 3682 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.
Recent studies that ex vivo drug responses on PDO models across different solid tumours can predict treatment responses to chemotherapeutic agents. In patients with metastatic or inoperable solid abdominal tumours, we perform a PDO based drug screen and to identify drugs that will confer clinical response and compared to conventional treatments
Liver fibrosis is the main feature in early chronic liver diseases. If identified early, liver fibrosis is reversible. The current gold standard for diagnosing liver fibrosis is invasive liver biopsy. Existing non-invasive methods still have significant limitations. T1rho imaging is a promising non-invasive technology evaluating liver fibrosis. It does not require exogenous contrast agent or extra hardware. However, it remains challenging to perform T1rho measurements of the liver. The rich blood signal in the liver introduces quantification errors of liver parenchyma. The existing black blood MRI technologies are based on Cartesian FSE acquisitions, which are not optimal for liver imaging. The residual blood signal is often observed which confounds the measurement. Current T1rho measurement of the liver is mostly performed in two-dimension. 3D coverage of liver is desirable. However, 3D T1rho imaging of liver suffers from long scan time due to increased spatial coverage, reduced scan time efficiency from motion compensation, and high specific absorption rate (SAR). The investigators aim to overcome these challenges by developing 3D T1rho imaging technologies based on magnetization prepared spiral FSE acquisition. Compared to Cartesian FSE, Spiral FSE traverses k-space more efficiently per unit of time, and has reduced SAR due to significantly decreased number of radiofrequency pulses in the echo trains. Spiral acquisition has zero gradient moment at the kspace center, which substantially reduces its sensitivity to respiratory motion. The residual motion manifests as benign incoherent artifacts in the image domain rather than detrimental structured artifacts. Differently to Cartesian FSE, Spiral FSE provides flexibility to design and optimize flow-sensitizing gradients throughout the echo trains to achieve superior suppression of blood signal. The investigators will evaluate the proposed pulse sequences in both healthy controls and patients with liver fibrosis. This project will provide new black blood imaging technologies and a 3D diagnostic tool for early detection of liver fibrosis. This will improve clinical outcomes for patients with chronic liver disease, and provide a springboard for further development of MRI technology for other purposes.
This study will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of a 36-week refill regimen for the Port Delivery System with ranibizumab 100 mg/mL (PDS Q36W) compared with intravitreal injections of aflibercept (2 mg) administered per treat-and-extend (aflibercept T&E) in subjects with neovascular (wet) age-related macular degeneration (nAMD).
This is a single-arm, uncontrolled, international, multi-center, clinical,phase 2 trial, in patients ≥ 12 months of age with high-risk neuroblastoma in first remission. 120 patients will be enrolled to receive naxitamab + GM-CSF in combination with isotretinoin.
The objective of this study is to compare the clinical effectiveness in producing anesthesia of the whole upper limb between two regional blocks - Selective Trunk Block (SeTB) and Hybrid Interscalene Supraclavicular Brachial Plexus Block (hybrid IS-SC BPB).
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and the resulting coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have afflicted tens of millions of people in a worldwide pandemic. Considering its high mortality and rapid spread, an effective vaccine is urgently needed to control this pandemic. Recently, mass vaccination campaigns using newly approved vaccines, ranging from conventional viral and protein-based vaccines to those that are more cutting edge, including DNA- and mRNA-based vaccines are beginning in many parts of the world. Randomized clinical trials of different vaccines reported efficacies for preventing COVID-19 in the range of 50% to 95%. Although these randomized clinical trials are considered the "gold standard" for evaluating intervention effects, they have notable limitations of sample size and subgroup analysis, restrictive inclusion criteria, and a highly controlled setting that may not be replicated in a mass vaccine rollout. The aim of this study is to evaluate the safety, tolerability, immunogenicity, and efficacy of different vaccines against COVID-19 under real-world practice conditions.
Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and diabetes as well as all-cause mortality. The prevalence of obesity has continuously increased in most countries and has doubled in over 70 countries since 1980. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated in 2014 that ~600 million (13%) adults were obese and ~1.9 billion (39%) were overweight worldwide. Notably, United States and China have the highest numbers of obese adults. According to a national survey in China in 2014 conducted among 146,703 Chinese adults aged 20-59, the prevalence of obesity was 13%, central obesity was 25% and overweight was 41%. In Hong Kong, the Behavioural Risk Factor Survey conducted by the Government in 2016 found 39% of adults were classified as overweight or obese, of which 21% were obese. The prevalence of central obesity has also risen steadily since 1999 in America. By 2030 is projected to reach 55.6% in men, 80.0% in women, 47.6% among girls and 38.9% among boys in the United States. Overweight, obesity and central obesity are now already pandemic public health issues causing heavy burden on healthcare system. Nowadays, lifestyle modification interventions still remain as the primary strategy to manage obesity and obesity-related complications, among which exercise is low-cost and effective. Substantial evidences have demonstrated effectiveness of HIIT and MICT in reducing body adiposity and improving body Anthropometry. However, studies have also pointed out "lack of time" is one of the major barriers preventing patients from exercise participation. Therefore, studies have put focus on low-frequency or low-volume exercise in improving health to reduce time commitment and increase exercise adherence. Among substantial evidence, our recent study demonstrated once-a-week HIIT is effectively in improving body composition. The effectiveness of low-frequency exercise in reducing visceral fat has also been explored. However, a recent meta-analysis showed low-frequency exercise is not effective in reducing visceral fat. Notably, the authors pointed out most of studies included in the meta-analysis adopted cycling exercise modality and they suggested walking or running exercise which recruits more body muscles may exert better results. In this study, we propose to adopt walking exercise modality to fill the research gap identified by the meta-analysis. Also, no study has compared the effectiveness of low-frequency HIIT and MICT in reducing visceral fat determined by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) previously. Study aim: to examine the effectiveness of once-a-week high-intensity interval training (HIIT) versus moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in reducing visceral fat in adults with central obesity
The investigators had designed weekly mindfulness sessions (details see intervention below), which is free-of-charge and will be made available to general public who feel distressed during the outbreak of COVID-19. Face-to-face delivery of mindfulness interventions was not possible due to mandatory quarantine. The investigators hypothesize that this intervention is feasible and acceptable by the participants. As secondary outcomes, the investigators also hypothesize that the intervention can reduce stress, depressive and anxiety symptoms and enhance participants' sense of coherence This will be a quasi-experimental study. Participants will be invited to fill in an online informed consent and questionnaire around 2 days before each mindfulness online session and another set of questionnaire immediately after each session (see outcome measures). Participants will be identified by their e-mail and therefore serial data could be obtained.
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. In our recent 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. In order to further improve the accessibility of the test, a simple urine measuring device has been designed to allow more simple and practical usage of the test in clinical setting.The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of this newly designed urine measuring device for urinary spermine in predicting your prostatic biopsy result.
Robotic prostatectomy is a surgery for treating localized prostate cancer. The ARssist system is a novel augmented reality system designed for the assistant surgeon, allowing delivery of augmented reality information via Microsoft HoloLens 2 (a head mount display developed by Microsoft) to better delineate the 3-D operative environment and enable better visualization. To date, there is no prospective study on the clinical performance and utilization of the ARssist system. This study is to evaluate the clinical feasibility and safety of the ARssist system during robotic surgery with the da Vinci Xi system.