There are about 53 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Malta. 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.
Sepsis is a complex syndrome that causes lethal organ dysfunction due to an abnormal host response to infection. No drug specifically targeting sepsis has been approved. The heterogeneity in sepsis pathophysiology hinders the identification of patients who would benefit, or be harmed, from specific therapeutic interventions. Recent clinical genomics studies have shown that sepsis patients can be stratified as molecular endotypes, or subclasses, with important clinical implications. Classifying sepsis patients as molecular endotypes revealed that a poor prognosis endotype was characterized by immunosuppression and septic shock. Against this backdrop, the study hypothesis is that a poor prognosis for sepsis is defined by a molecular endotype reflecting impaired innate immune and endothelial barrier integrity in the primary anatomical site of infection.
The goal of this clinical trial is to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a multi-component smoking cessation intervention for individuals living with diabetes which is delivered by diabetes specialist nurses. The main question it aims to answer is: Is a diabetes specialist nurse-led multi-component smoking cessation intervention tailored for persons living with diabetes who smoke feasible and acceptable among the providers and the participants, the individuals with diabetes? Eligible individuals living with diabetes who smoke will be asked to participate in a feasibility study lasting twelve weeks. The participants will be allocated at random either to the diabetes specialist nurse-led multi-component smoking cessation intervention, or to standard care - an active referral to the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate's one-to-one smoking cessation service. The multi-component smoking cessation intervention will be provided by the diabetes specialist nurses at the Diabetes Education Unit at Mater Dei Hospital. The Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate's one-to-one smoking cessation service is provided by tobacco cessation facilitators within the health centres of Mosta, Floriana, and Paola. Both interventions will help participants re-consider their smoking habits and support them to quit smoking, free of charge. Primarily the researchers will: - assess the feasibility of a largescale randomized controlled trial, by analyzing the recruitment and study uptake, and the nurses' perceived challenges and facilitators to implementation; - and assess the acceptability of the intervention, by analyzing the nurses' feedback and the participants' satisfaction with and perceived usefulness of the smoking cessation intervention provided, in comparison to the satisfaction with standard care - the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Directorate's one-to-one smoking cessation service.
The ITAMA project, which ended in 03/2022, came from the need to increase/anticipate the number of diagnosed cases of celiac disease (CD). The project involved the preliminary development of 'software tools' (Graphical User Interface (GUI), DATABASE, Decision Support System (DSS)) used to support the physicians to optimize CD diagnosis. Subsequently, through a screening of about 20,000 subjects of school age in Malta and about 1,000 subjects in Sicily, it was shown that, in compliance with international guidelines, it is possible to anticipate CD diagnosis and make it easy with the aid of a tool based on the search for specific antibodies in the blood, collecting a single drop of blood - with a test performed directly "in the points where care is provided" (eg schools, outpatient clinics) that is with a Point-of-Care-Test (PoCT). This system proved to be effective, and the method was minimally invasive (at least in some pediatric cases it was possible to avoid the endoscopic examination). The ITAMA project has made it possible to bring out a submerged part of the "CD iceberg", a condition that in a large percentage of cases remains undiagnosed and transfer the know-how to commercial companies in the medical sector. ITAMA project results allowed to verify and validate, on a large sample of subjects subjected to screening, that: 1. Diagnosis can be anticipated and facilitated by combined use of a rapid test (PoCT), medical history (supported by software) and traditional serological tests. 2. The diagnosis can be optimized by the support of Information Technology (IT) tools based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). 3. Non-invasive methods, if correctly applied, allow CD diagnosis avoiding invasive diagnostic techniques. 4. The reported procedures grant considerable savings for the National Health System (NHS). Starting from the results of ITAMA, this capitalization project aims to extend the previous experience in a larger population with heterogeneous characteristics (both adults and children). The goal of the new project is to use the combination of PoCT + tools software, to increase/anticipate CD diagnosis and, therefore, bring the number of diagnosed subjects closer to the number of expected cases, in Sicily and Malta. The inevitable implication of this would be the improvement in the quality of life of patients (reduction of symptoms, fewer medical visits and instrumental examinations performed, reduction of lost working days, improvement of social relations) and a significant reduction in costs for the NHS.
The investigators propose to create a prospective Crohn Disease cohort, where patients receiving the most up-to-date therapies with a treat-to-target strategy, will be closely followed to characterize the progression of Crohn Disease by measuring the Lémann Index over time. The goal of the CROCO Study - "Crohn's Disease Cohort Study" is to promote a greater understanding of the long-term evolution of Crohn Disease , to describe prospectively the impact of different therapeutic strategies and develop accurate predictors of bowel disease damage and disability.
This study is aimed at non-invasive extraction of cardiovascular and respiratory parameters from red-green-blue (RGB) and thermal imaging cameras from patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting. The main focus of this study is in assessing the feasibility of implementing such a camera-based system for prolonged monitoring of patients, identifying limiting factors which may interfere with accuracy or practical aspects of the system, and postulating solutions to overcoming these.
The ultimate goal for every health-care system is to have a healthy population by maintaining good physical fitness levels and lifestyle habits, including regular physical activity, good sleep quality, smoking and alcohol abstinence. The main components of physical fitness include body composition, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility and cardiovascular endurance. National research based on actual and perceived physical fitness levels in University of Malta (UM) students where both physical and non-physical testing are included, is lacking. Also, to the knowledge of the researcher, no such research investigated the relationship between the actual and perceived levels of physical fitness with lifestyle habits (smoking, alcohol consumption and sleep). This study aims to investigate the correlation between the actual and perceived levels of physical fitness (body composition, cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance and flexibility) by physical and non-physical testing, the correlation between lifestyle patterns (smoking, alcohol consumption and sleep.
Unusual site venous thromboembolism (VTE) refers to thrombosis occurring in venous districts outside the veins of the lower extremities and the pulmonary arteries, and includes splanchnic vein thrombosis (SVT), cerebral vein thrombosis (CVT), retinal vein thrombosis, ovarian vein thrombosis, and renal vein thrombosis. The use of the novel direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC), thrombin or factor Xa-inhibitors (such as dabigatran, apixaban, edoxaban, rivaroxaban), in patients with unusual VTE in clinical practice is increasing. Through an international multicentre prospective registry, the investigators aim to evaluate the rationale for the use of the DOAC for the treatment of unusual site VTE and to assess the safety and effectiveness of this approach in real life clinical practice.