View clinical trials related to Sarcoidosis.
Filter by:The purpose of this study is to validate the method of analysing Positron Emission Tomography (PET) images to assess lung inflammation. Development of novel therapeutic drugs requires a biomarker which is sensitive to the underlying disease and can respond to therapeutic interventions. PET is a potential imaging biomarker which can target molecular and cellular processes. There is currently no standardised method of analysing PET lung data and a lack of validation for the existing techniques. This study is divided in to two parts. Part A aims to determine the best method to perform 18F-FDG PET/CT lung analysis and how it correlates with cell counts from bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) samples taken from participants with active pulmonary sarcoidosis. Part B will compare imaging data from healthy volunteers who have either undergone a Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge (whereby the lung is temporarily inflamed) or saline equivalent to determine whether lung inflammation can be detected by 18F-FDG PET/CT. No medications will be given and patients will not be asked to stop or change existing medication.
Study comparing pirfenidone versus placebo for patients with advanced fibrotic sarcoidosis
Sarcoidosis is a multi-system granulomatous disorder that is triggered and influenced by gene-environment interactions. Although sarcoidosis predominantly affects the lungs in most cases, the clinical disease course is highly variable and any organ can be affected leading to end organ damage despite currently available therapeutics that unfortunately also have numerous and potentially devastating side effects. The environmental triggers of sarcoidosis are unknown but several occupational, environmental and infectious agents have been associated with sarcoidosis in susceptible hosts. Exposure to these triggers result in inflammation, characterized by activation of CD4+ T-cells, cytokine production, subsequent recruitment of other immune cells, and granuloma formation. Although several genetic markers have been associated with sarcoidosis, none fully explain individual susceptibility or clinical course variability, strongly implicating the environment and epigenetics. We have the ability to generate a map of the epigenetic histone modifications in immune cells via Chromatin Immuno-Precipitation coupled with next generation sequencing (ChIP-seq) and a map of transcriptome profiles via RNA-seq. The availability of histone and transcriptional signatures defining T cell activity in sarcoidosis will help identify the specific molecular programs affected by disease processes and can become the basis for future discovery of novel biomarker diagnostics in a clinical setting.
The study objective is to identify the earliest changes in energy substrate metabolism in patients with cardiomyopathies (CMP). To achieve this objective, we plan first to test the hypothesis that patients with CMP present focal alterations in myocardial hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate flux.
Arrhythmogenic ventricular cardiomyopathy (AVC) is a genetic condition which affects the heart and can lead to heart failure and rhythm problems, of which, sudden cardiac arrest or death is the most tragic and dangerous. Diagnosis and screening of blood-relatives is very difficult as the disease process can be subtle, but sufficient enough, so that the first event is sudden death. The Mayo Clinic AVC Registry is a collaboration between Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA and Papworth Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals, Cambridge, UK. The investigators aim to enroll patients with a history of AVC or sudden cardiac death which may be due to AVC, from the US and UK. Family members who are blood-relatives will also be invited, including those who do not have the condition. Data collected include symptoms, ECG, echocardiographic, MRI, Holter, loop recorder, biopsies, exercise stress testing, blood, buccal and saliva samples. Objectives of the study: 1. Discover new genes or altered genes (variants) which cause AVC 2. Identify biomarkers which predict (2a) disease onset, (2b) disease progression, (2c) and the likelihood of arrhythmia (ventricular, supra-ventricular and atrial fibrillation) 3. Correlate genotype with phenotype in confirmed cases of AVC followed longitudinally using clinical, electrocardiographic and imaging data. 4. Characterize desmosomal changes in buccal mucosal cells with genotype and validate with gold-standard endomyocardial biopsies
Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) is a rare condition in which the heart muscle cells especially of the main pumping chamber (the 'ventricle') is replaced by fat and scar tissue. Sarcoidosis is a condition that can affect many organs but when it affects the heart patches of inflammation can result in scarring, especially of the ventricles. Both conditions can cause dangerous heart rhythms and sudden death. Sarcoidosis can be treated with inflammation suppressing treatment (steroids), as well as pacemakers and implantable defibrillators which shock the heart back to normal rhythm. ARVC is usually treated with implantable defibrillators. The diagnosis of either condition can be difficult and indeed distinguishing the two can be extremely challenging. Increasingly nuclear scans (PET) are used to identify inflammation in the heart in patients suspected of having cardiac sarcoid. It is not known whether patients with ARVC have abnormal PET scans.
This is a prospective randomised diagnostic clinical study to determine whether the use of a new flexible sampling needle can improve the yield of endobronchial ultrasound guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA). Patients undergoing EBUS-TBNA for clinical reasons as deemed necessary by the managing physician or multidisciplinary team will be randomised to undergo either EBUS-TBNA or Flex 19G EBUS-TBNA. The procedure will be performed under local anaesthesia using conscious sedation or general anaesthesia according to usual practice at the trial centre. Specimens will be placed in saline and formalin and forwarded to the pathology laboratory. The specimens will be spun down to create a cell pellet which will undergo cytological and histological examination as per usual protocol at the trial centre.The pathologist, who will be blinded as to which technique was used to obtain the sample, will grade the quality, quantity, and cellularity of the specimens.
Major impacts of air pollution are lung diseases such as granulomatous diseases and mainly sarcoidosis. Understanding the respective role of inorganic / nanoparticles and genetic background in these chronic diseases is a major challenge for the management of patients and prevention strategies. Granulomas are characterized by giant epithelioid and multinucleated cells, reflecting a severe disturbance in immunological pathways induced both by toxic exposure and genetic predisposition. Previous studies demonstrated that professional environmental context and acute exposures (the World Trade Center disaster) to micro/nanoparticles have a pathogenic impact with a sharp increase in sarcoidosis. Sarcoidosis is a multifactorial disease occurring in a genetically vulnerable context. Many gene variants have been linked to an increased odds-ratio of the disease, such BTNL2, CCDC88B, ANNEXIN A11 involved in regulation of T-cell activation and maturation pathways. We have contributed since 2008 to a national cohort (GSF, 28 centers) of ≈ 800 sarcoidosis patients with familial and sporadic presentation of the disease. This collection has been an exceptional (and worldwide unique) tool for the implementation of an exhaustive clinical database on sarcoidosis, modelling of disease evolution and identification of clinical / genetic criteria differentiating sporadic and familial forms. The main goals of the project are: 1. Completion of the genetic data in order to establish a pattern of gene variants segregating with familial forms of the disease, compared to sporadic one. This will be done by WES (WHOLE EXOME) analysis on the previously collected DNA samples. The informed consent for the patients included the information about the BTNL2 gene, which has been already tested since 2008, and related genes connected to immune pathways, thus allowing a unambiguous information about the research finality of the project. 2. Completion of the clinical data about each patient, in cooperation with the GSF network, management of the database established since 2008. The data collected are those which are commonly detailed in the normal follow-up of the patients. The project do not include any new interventions on the patient (neither radiological or invasive tests). 3. Specific biological studies might be done on the white blood cells of the patients, and might need in such cases a new blood sampling, both in patients and first degree related healthy controls. Theses specific studies will be presented to an ethical committee (CCP) in order to validate the feasibility in term of 'new intervention' on the cohort. The samples collected will be at the same volume of a classical blood sampling (2*7 ml). 4. Any other projects, submitted to the GSF network will needed a specific registration and ethical committee validation.
Current diagnostic tools used in interstitial lung disease (ILD) do not meet the challenges set by the complex pathophysiology of this heterogenous group. The investigators therefore aimed to evaluate novel or not widely used diagnostic approaches for the detection and therapeutic monitoring of patients with various ILDs.
The goal of the current study is to evaluate the potential of the selected PET tracers to detect sarcoidotic lesions in lungs. The tracers are already in clinical use for the detection of certain inflammatory processes or malignant tumors, and their targets present similarities with molecular mechanisms of sarcoidosis.