View clinical trials related to Scleroderma.
Filter by:Patients with scleroderma can develop heart failure due to high blood pressure in the lungs (a condition called pulmonary arterial hypertension). It is important to find pulmonary arterial hypertension early, so that it can be treated before heart failure develops. However, the tests that we now use to find the earliest form of this disease in scleroderma patients are not good enough. This study will examine whether tests performed during exercise can improve our ability to find early pulmonary arterial hypertension. The study will also try to identify genes that are responsible for the development of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
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Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is characterised by inflammation and scarring of the lung and is the leading cause of death in patients with systemic sclerosis, and contributes significantly to morbidity and mortality in many other connective tissue diseases (CTDs) such as polymyositis/dermatomyositis and mixed connective tissue disease. When ILD is extensive and/or progressive, immunosuppressive medication is often required to stabilize lung disease and alleviate symptoms. Current standard care for CTD associated ILD is extrapolated from studies performed in individuals with systemic sclerosis and comprises low dose corticosteroids and intravenous cyclophosphamide followed by oral azathioprine. In some individuals even this intensive immunosuppression is insufficient to prevent deterioration, and in a significant minority of affected individuals this results in respiratory failure and death. Rituximab has recently been reported as an effective 'rescue therapy' for stabilizing and even improving ILD in this patient group. Based on observations gained from this experience, the investigators believe that rituximab is a potential important alternative to current best therapy for this patient group. This study has therefore been initiated to evaluate the efficacy of rituximab (compared with standard therapy) in patients with progressive CTD related ILD.
The primary intent of this study is to add to the body of knowledge on scleroderma patients with interstitial lung disease. While lung disease is recognized as the leading cause of death amongst patients with scleroderma, there is not a large body of literature describing the long-term morbidity and mortality rate of these scleroderma patients. For this reason, the investigators are following participants of the Scleroderma Lung Study (NCT00004563) after their participation in that study was concluded. In addition, the investigators will assess if the subjects who received one year of oral cyclophosphamide in the Scleroderma Lung Study experienced progression of their scleroderma-related lung disease following the end of the study.
By including in this study patients with significant worsening of their lung volumes and / or their DLCO (carbon monoxide diffusing capacity) in the previous year, on the basis of an open retrospective study we recently conducted, we hope to demonstrate that a strategy combining prednisone and intravenous cyclophosphamide therapy is accompanied by an increase in the frequency stabilization / improvement of lung volumes and / or DLCO of patients at 12 months of 15% in the placebo and prednisone cyclophosphamide 50% in cyclophosphamide and prednisone.We also hope to demonstrate significant decrease in the number of patients excluded for failure in the CYC arm as compared to the placebo arm.
Scleroderma,also known as systemic sclerosis (SSc), is a multisystem disease affecting skin and other tissues including joints, muscles, lungs, the gastrointestinal tract and kidneys and tissue fibrosis is widespread. SSc presents special problems for developing therapies due to the heterogeneous clinical presentation, the variability of disease progression and the difficulty quantifying the extent of disease. For most disease manifestations, treatment is primarily symptomatic and generally inadequate. This study will utilize a 4-gene biomarker of skin disease as the primary efficacy outcome in a short duration, placebo-controlled clinical trial of rilonacept, designed to provide preliminary data for a larger trial. These gene biomarkers should provide a strong surrogate for such trials in the future and, if IL-1 is indeed the cytokine leading to fibrosis in this disease, provide a highly significant start to finding a therapeutic for SSc that for the first time might dramatically affect fibrosis. A central hypothesis of this study is that IL-1 inhibition will downregulate the 4-gene biomarker over a relatively short period of time, much shorter than is historically thought necessary to see changes in the MRSS, a skin score measurement tool. Entry criteria will include the recent onset of diffuse cutaneous SSc as this is the population most likely to show progressive skin disease and also the population examined in previous studies showing correlations between MRSS and the 4-gene biomarker. Secondary outcomes will include other validated measures of SSc disease activity. MRSS and SSc health assessment questionnaire (SHAQ), will be followed during the trial. This study will also test the effect of rilonacept on global skin gene expression using microarray analyses of skin biopsies. In addition, serum biomarkers of SSc disease activity (COMP, THS-1 and IFI44) and a biomarker of inflammasome activation (CRP) will be tested before and after treatment.
Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) associated with scleroderma is a difficult problem to treat. Many patients develop ischemic digital ulcers due to severe RP that causes considerable morbidity and adversely affects the quality of life. In an earlier study, we have observed marked improvement in RP attacks and rapid healing of digital ulcers following therapy with phosphodiesterase V inhibitor, Tadalafil. In the present multicentric study we aim to study the efficacy of Tadalafil in patients continuing to have RP attacks despite using at least one or more vasodilators.
Thirty subjects with systemic sclerosis and 30 age and sex matched controls without any known condition that should cause increased skin hardness in the fingers with undergo examination by manual palpation and durometer measured hardness of their digital tuft skin by 2 observers on 2 separate occasions. There will be 1 hour between individual observer's scorings. Observers will be blinded from the observer's scores and from their previous scores. Results will be tabulated and compared for manual scores versus durometer measurements, intra-observer scores by both methods and inter-observer scores by both methods.
Systemic sclerosis is a chronic autoimmune connective tissue disorder with no universally accepted disease modifying regimen. Recruiting patients for systemic sclerosis treatment studies is difficult due to the limited availability of such patients and furthermore the use of a placebo arm is often deemed unethical due to the poor survival of diffuse systemic sclerosis patients. Long-term controlled trials examining functional outcomes and survival from novel therapeutic agents for systemic sclerosis are often difficult to undertake because of costs, rarity of the disease and ethical issues with the use of a true placebo. Open label single center studies while inferior to multicenter placebo controlled studies, have helped establish the benefits of certain pharmaceutical agents in systemic sclerosis, and while not universally accepted as disease modifying agents, have been used with some success to treat systemic sclerosis. The hypothesis on which we are basing this study is that an endothelin receptor antagonist and disease modifying agent with antifibrotic properties will have additive influence on fibrosis, inhibit cellular and humoral hyperactivity and interfere with smooth muscle proliferation in the vessel wall. The combination of these two agents will also be the first regimen to address the heterogeneity of scleroderma manifestations including ILD, pulmonary arterial hypertension and skin manifestations
The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of intravenously administered MEDI-551 over escalating single doses in adult subjects with Scleroderma