View clinical trials related to Diffuse Lewy Body Disease.
Filter by:This study seeks to establish the sensitivity and specificity of what appears to be a unique brainstem biomarker of Parkinson's Disease (PD) - an electrically induced olygosynaptic nasotrigeminal reflex response - in differentiating early stage PD from normal controls and from patients with various other neurodegenerative diseases. This study will additionally compare the biomarker to olfactory testing.
This study uses a special type of scan called a positron emission tomography (PET) scan to take pictures of the brain. During the PET scan, a special dye called 11C-PBR28 is injected into the body. 11C-PBR28 sticks to parts of the brain where there is inflammation. The purpose of this study is to see if 11C-PBR28 can detect inflammation in patients with Parkinson's disease dementia or dementia with Lewy bodies. 11C-PBR28 is considered a drug by the Food and Drug Administration. 11C-PBR28 is not a treatment for any disease. Rather, 11C-PBR28 can be used to measure inflammation in the brain.
This pilot study will test Nilotinib's ability to alter the abnormal protein build up in Parkinson disease and Diffuse Lewey Body Disease patients . Patients will receive Nilotinib at different doses for 6 months. Patients will then be tested to see if there is change in three areas: 1) has the disease symptoms changed. 2) has levels of a specific misfolded protein changed in the fluid around their brain and spine. 3) Have inflammatory markers changed in the patient's blood and fluid around their brain and spine. If successful, this drug could be used to slow down or stop the progression of disorders that involve abnormal collection of misfolded proteins. However, the main purpose of this pilot study is to check for the safety of using this medication at this level.
The main goal of the GENEPARK consortium is to employ innovative haemogenomic approaches to determine gene expression profiles specific for genetic and idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. These gene expression signatures will be utilised clinically as non-invasive diagnostic tests for PD. The sensitivity of the newly developed diagnostic test will be determined by extensive validations on an independent cohort of PD patients, whereas the specificity will be assessed by testing patients with atypical parkinsonisms, including multiple system atrophy, progressive supranuclear palsy and diffuse Lewy body disease. In order to test the specificity of the diagnostic set in other disorders that affect basal ganglia, Huntington's disease and dopa responsive dystonia patients will be analysed. The second objective of the proposal is to determine correlations between gene expression signatures and different stages of PD and thus provide the basis for early diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression. These changes in blood gene expression will be correlated with alterations detected by neuroimaging in the brain of PD patients. Such combinations of molecular and morphological markers of disease may ultimately facilitate the selection and monitoring of neuroprotective therapies for PD. Finally, GENEPARK aims to develop new bioinformatic software tools for selection of genomic biomarkers using microarray data. A set of established computational tools will be applied and novel methods, some of them based on mechanistic modelling of the neurodegenerative diseases, will be developed in order to study the advantages and limitations of the different methodologies. With special emphasis on the careful clinical selection of patients and sufficient power regarding patient numbers, as well as extensive quality control and validation of the data, GENEPARK aims to develop a standardised approach to development and validation of haemogenomic biomarkers of disease.