There are about 10560 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Taiwan. 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 purpose of this study is to compare movement variations before and after the loaded training, with kinematics, kinetics, and electromyography, in children with spastic diplegia and to further discuss mechanisms of the loaded training.
In conventional treatment for non-complicated bacterial cystitis, 3-day oral antibiotics could achieve good cure rate. However, severe lower urinary tract symptoms were most bothersome and only could be partially relieved by NSAID, detrusor muscle relaxants, minor tranquilizer or pyridium. Some medication associated side effects were complained while receiving adjuvant medication treatment, including gastro-intestinal discomfort, dry mouth, blurred vision, lethargy, or allergic reactions. The irritative bladder symptoms from bladder inflammation had great impact on the quality of life and well tolerable adjuvant therapy would have clinical benefit to reduce the discomfort from the bladder. In the past years, cranberry juice or its extract has been proven to have protective effect on urothelium to prevent further bacterial ascending infection. The commercial cranberry extract tablets have good tolerability and showed good effect on symptoms reliving and infection protection on several clinical observation. In acute bladder infection, we could expect the bioactive components in cranberry could reduce the virulence of pathogens and assist to eradicate pathogens and to stable the urothelium. In literature review, only little works focusing on the symptoms relief in acute cystitis patients. To clarify the clinical benefit on lower urinary symptoms relieving, we attempt to conduct a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial to evaluate the effect of a compound cranberry extract tablet as an adjunctive modality in treating acute uncomplicated bacterial cystitis in otherwise healthy female patients.
Investigate the role of MMPs in the CXCL12-induced invasion of laryngeal and hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma
Hyperphosphatemia is frequently seen in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Hyperphosphatemia usually results in a high calcium-phosphorus product (CPP) which may subsequently lead to artery and become a risk factor of cardiovascular complications. Alendronate, due to its effect of inhibiting osteoclasts, is approved for treatment of osteoporosis. Previous reports found the use of bisphosphonates could suppress arterial calcification in hemodialysis dialysis patients. The aim of this study is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of alendronate to suppress coronary artery and aortic calcifications, as well as to improve bone density in chronic peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. This study will include ESRD patients who had received maintenance PD for more than 3 months, have high CPP level (≧55), and have chest X-ray proven aortic calcification or coronary artery calcification. All participants are randomly allocated to either group 1 or group 2. Group 1 patients receive alendronate 70 mg once weekly in the first 16 weeks, while group 2 patients receive the same dose of drug every week in the second 16 weeks. The extent of coronary artery and aortic calcification is evaluated by using multi-detector spiral computed tomography, whereas bone mineral density is measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Both examinations are performed at week 0, 16 and 32 for each participant. Laboratory studies and possible adverse reactions were regularly monitored. We expect that alendronate can alleviate the progression of arterial calcification or even improve it. Bone density may also be improved after treatment. Besides, we wish to find the independent factor(s) influencing the efficacy of alendronate. These results may help clinical physicians for early intervention and prevention of cardiovascular complications in ESRD patients.
Gestational trophoblastic disease comprises a spectrum of diseases with different propensity for local invasion and metastasis, that is, partial and complete hydatidiform mole, choriocarcinoma, and placental site trophoblastic tumor.All trophoblastic tumors produce hCG, and monitoring of therapy is largely based on the determination of hCG in serum. The conformational change of tumor markers during antineoplastic chemotherapy for cancer and its clinical meaning has only been rarely studied. In this study, we will try to understand the conformational change of the tumor marker (hCG) during chemotherapy.
The primary endpoint of this phase II trial is the objective tumor response rate. The secondary endpoints include treatment-related toxicity, the clinical benefit response defined by the change in performance status and body weight, the change in quality of life, progression free survival and overall survival. Simon's optimal two-stage design will be used to determine the patient number.
The study includes two components：(1) cross-sectional (Study I), and (2) longitudinal treatment trial (Study II). The cross-sectional component will include all subjects initially recruited for the parent project. Genotyping characteristics will be compared with clinical status (i.e., recovered vs symptomatic). The treatment trial component (one) will include a subset of the subjects (n = 400) who remain significantly depressed. They will be randomly assigned to 8-weeks of treatment with either citalopram or paroxetine. With such a design, we wish to test the following hypotheses： Ⅰ. Depressed patients with the short variant of the serotonin transporter (5HTTLPR) will respond faster and better to antidepressants compared to their counterparts with the long variant. Concurrently, patients with the 5-HTT Stin2 12/12 allele will also show better response as compared to those with the 10/12 allele. Ⅱ. Depressed patients who are homozygous for deficient or less active CYP2D6 or CYP2C19 enzyme(s) will be more likely to show treatment emergent side effects compared to subjects with the wildtype alleles. Specifically, in Study II, CYP2D6 polymorphism will predict PAR but not CIT side effects and CYP2C19 polymorphism will be associated with CIT but not PAR side effects.
OBJECTIVE – The role of health promotion for patients with impaired fasting glucose on preventing or delay the progression of diabetes mellitus has not been widely investigated in Taiwan. The purposes of this study are to explore the nature history of prediabetes, to evaluate the incidence of DM in prediabetes and to establish the cohort of people with prediabetes. Further study will be based on this cohort to evaluate the effect of health promotion and to compare the concentration of certain protein in their serum, such as adiponectin. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS –A total of 600 subjects aged 40-60 years with impaired fasting glucose (100-125 mg/dl) were randomly selected from the Peng-Hu clinics during January 2003 and December 2003. Anthropometric, biochemical, and metabolic characteristics will be measured, including weight, height, waist circumference, oral glucose tolerance test, triglyceride, high and low density cholesterol, blood pressure and insulin resistance etc. A questionnaire interviews with subjects regarding demographic characteristics is also performed. 300 subjects will receive education of health promotion. Simultaneously, 150 subjects with normal fasting plasma glucose (<100 mg/dl) will selected for comparison. Statistical Analysis - Descriptive data will be described as means and SDs for continuous variables, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square tests were used for assessing the significances. Bonferroni method was used for post-hoc comparison in ANOVA. Multiple linear regressions were used for predicting determinants of FPG. We tested the variables scales in this study for multicollinearity by correlation matrix and VIF (variance inflation factor). Odds ratios (ORs) and the 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to estimate the relative risk of diabetes mellitus by logistic regression model. A p-value below 0.05 was considered significant. The statistical analyses were performed with SPSS statistical Package.
CNS reorganization is evidenced in patients with CNS lesion, no exception to the patients with spinal cord injury. The paraplegics have to increase their loading of upper extremities to compesate the lost function of lower extremities. We hypothesize that CNS reorganization can happen in the chronic paraplegics. We try to compare the changes of parameters of transcranial magnetic stimulation in these patients with the normal population cross-sectionally.
In this study, we aim at evaluating the effect of electroacupuncture in diabetic patients with gastroparesis. Patient-based symptom severity measure, serum parameters and solid-phase gastric emptying time are measured to evaluate the effectiveness of electroacupuncture.