View clinical trials related to Motor Neuron Disease.
Filter by:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a rare lethal neurodegenerative disease involving inflammation. Riluzole, the only drug for ALS, improves median survival by 3 months. This prompts new treatments of ALS. RNS60 is an experimental drug with favorable effects in preclinical studies of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. Based on significant efficacy demonstrated in preclinical studies and its excellent clinical safety profile, RNS60 is a promising candidate for a drug to treat ALS. Developing a pharmacodynamic marker will be a first and important step for dose finding and exploration of the mechanism of action in human, and pave the way to trials measuring drug efficacy. The Investigator propose a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group, Phase II trial. The study centers will be located in Italy and at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. A total of 142 ALS patients will be randomly assigned to RNS60 or placebo (administered by intravenous infusion once/week and inhaled via nebulization every morning for 24 weeks). All participants will also take riluzole (50-mg tablet twice/day). Blood samples for biomarker analysis (protein, RNA) will be collected in the screening period, on day 1, week 4,12 and 24. Both safety and potential therapeutic effects of RNS60 will be also assessed.
To compensate for insufficiency of diagnostic tools, the present study propose to look for the predictive factors of an early fitting by noninvasive ventilation.
Washington University in St. Louis is seeking participants with ALS for a study to determine the half-life of the protein SOD1 in the cerebral spinal fluid. Mutations in the SOD1 gene are known to cause some forms of familial ALS. Researchers are developing a treatment to reduce the level of SOD1 in familial ALS, but need to know more about how long SOD1 stays in the body ("half-life") to help determine if the new treatment is effective.
- Patients with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) admitted to Lane Fox Unit /Royal Brompton Hospital and/or reviewed in Lane Fox Unit /Royal Brompton Hospital clinics and/or outreach review will be approached for participation in the study - Physiological assessment and measurement of arterial stiffness will be performed in all patients at baseline and after the use of non invasive ventilation for 6 weeks. - MND patients not requiring mechanical ventilation will serve as controls since non invasive ventilation cannot be withheld from MND patients in type II respiratory failure. - Data will be analysed to look for differences between groups, relationships in baseline or change from baseline in respiratory physiological measures, inflammatory indices, breathlessness, and arterial stiffness. - Age, Height, Weight - History and Physical Examination - Evaluation of dysponea: mMRC, Borg Scale (Seated-Supine) - Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis functional rating scale (ALSFRS-R) - Sleep Disordered Breathing in Neuromuscular Disease Questionnaire (SiNQ-5) - 24 hour blood pressure monitor - Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity - Respiratory Muscle Strength - Maximal Inspiratory Pressure, Maximal Expiratory Pressure, and Sniff Nasal Inspiratory Pressure - Spirometry - FEV1 and FVC - Arterial Blood Gas - CRP and fibrinogen (clinically) - Breathe CO exhale
This is a randomized double blinded randomized 2:1 study. The duration of the study is 6 month. The safety and tolerability of high doses of biotin (300 mg/ day) will be compared to placebo in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Patients will be evaluated at baseline, 3, and 6 month. The primary outcome will be any adverse effects recorded. The secondary outcomes will be motor disability measured by ALS-FRS, change in Pulmonary function test parameters (FEV1- FVC), change in subject weight (in kg).
Veterans are at higher risk than non-Veterans of falling ill with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ALS causes degeneration of motor neurons in both the brain and the spinal cord. Evidence from studies in people with spinal cord injury suggests that activating spared nerve circuits with electromagnetic stimulation improves nerve transmission. With this goal, the investigators have developed a novel method of noninvasive cervical (neck) electrical stimulation (CES). In this study, the investigators will investigate CES for its potential to strengthen nerve circuits to the hands in ALS. To the investigators' knowledge, electrical spinal stimulation for ALS has never been tested previously. This study will be performed in two stages: First, basic experiments will be performed to better understand how CES interacts with other types of electrical and magnetic stimulations over the brain and peripheral nerves. Second, experiments will be performed to determine the types of CES that can facilitate active arm and hand movements. These experiments will improve understanding of electrical stimulation in ALS, and may set the table for future treatments. Both United States Veterans and non-Veterans are eligible to participate in this study.
Introduction: About 50-60% of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by hypermetabolism, defined as 10% or more excess resting energy expenditure (REE) compared to theoretical values. Harris and Benedict's (HB) formula is the equation mainly used to predict REE, but others are also applied in current practice. The present study aimed to assess REE in ALS patients compared to control populations and to compare six formulas commonly used to predict REE. Nutritional assessments were performed in ALS patients and in two control populations without hypermetabolism: healthy elderly people (control 1) and patients with non-restrictive-eating disorders (control 2). Weight, height and body composition (by bioimpedance analysis) were assessed. EE was measured (mREE) by indirect calorimetry and calculated (cREE) using HB 1919 and 1984, World Schofield, De Lorenzo, Johnstone and Mifflin formulas. Mann-Whitney and Chi2 tests were used to compare the equations.
Introduction: Resting energy expenditure (REE) formulas for healthy people (HP) are used to calculate REE (cREE) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. In ALS an increase of measured REE (mREE) in indirect calometry (IC) compared to cREE is found in 50-60%. The aims were (i) to assess accuracy of cREE assessed using eleven formulas as compared to mREE and (ii) to create if needed a specific cREE formula for ALS patients. Method: ALS patients followed in the ALS expert center of Limoges between 1996 and 2014 and with a nutritional evaluation were included. mREE assessed with IC and cREE calculated with eleven predictive formulas (Harris Benedict (HB) 1919, HB 1984, WSchofield, De Lorenzo, Johnstone, Mifflin, WHO/FAO, Owen, Fleisch, Wang and Rosenbaum) were collected at time of diagnosis. Fat free mass (FFM) and fat mass (FM) were measured with impedancemetry. A Bland and Altman analysis was carried out. The percentage of accurate prediction ± 10%of mREE, and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated. Using a derivation sample, a new REE formula was created using multiple linear regression according to sex, age, FFM and FM. Accuracy of this formula was assessed in a validation sample.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is an adult-onset, devastating, neurodegenerative disease characterized by the loss of cortical, brain stem, and spinal motor neurons. Visual evoked potentials studies in patients with ALS suggest visual pathway involvement. Optic coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive cross-sectional imaging modality measuring the optical reflections in biological tissues. The main objective of this observational cohort study is to explore the correlation between changes on OCT retinal parameters and and clinical disability as measured by the ALS Functional Rating Scale (ALS-FRS-r) in patients with ALS at baseline, 3 and 6 months. A secondary objective is to explore the correlation between changes in retinal OCT parameters and pulmonary function tests (FVC and FEV1) in this cohort of patients with ALS. A parallel cohort of healthy age and sex matched subjects will participate as controls to obtain reference values of their retinal layers' thickness at baseline, 3 and 6 months.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common motor neuron disease, is a fatal progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting motor cortex, brainstem and spinal cord leading to motor neuron death. It is a devastating disease of the anterior and lateral corticospinal tracts with approximately 3 years mean duration from symptoms onset to death, one-fifth survival at 5 years and only 10% may make it to 10 years. Among the neuronal death pathways, excitotoxicity mechanism is considered to be the foremost-involved mechanism. AMPA receptors are thought to be the prime mediator of the fast excitation in spinal motor neurons, where they are expressed ubiquitously. AMPA receptor antagonist was able to prevent this acute degeneration in previous animal studies. The investigators aim to study the tolerability and safety of the novel AMPA antagonist, perampanel, in patients diagnosed with ALS. Perampanel [2-(2-oxo-1-phenyl-5- pyridin-2-yl-1,2-dihydropyridin-3-yl) benzonitrile] with its selective non-competitive AMPA antagonism, was recently approved for epilepsy. Various long-term trials studying perampanel in epilepsy showed favorable tolerability profile and most common side effects were mainly: dizziness, headache and somnolence. All patients presenting to Neurology clinics at AUBMC diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, will be considered for the study. Investigators will obtain informed consents from all patients who agree to be enrolled in this study in accordance with institutional review board (IRB) requirements. Patients of both genders and over 18 years old who meet the El Escorial criteria for possible, probable or definite ALS and fit the inclusion criteria will be recruited. Subjects should not be started on riluzole for the past 30 days or stable on a dose of riluzole for at least 30 days prior to the screening process. In titration phase, perampanel dose will be increase by 2mg/day increments every one week to reach a maximum dose of 8 mg/day; reaching the maximum dose in four weeks. Treatment phase will be followed by washout period during which, dose will be tapered by 2mg/day every 5 days (over total of 15 days).