Category: Clinical Trials

Recent studies have shown that people with multiple sclerosis (MS) who also have diseases related to vascular health such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and others, may end up more disabled than people with MS who don't have those diseases. This has led to a growing interest in the role of vascular diseases in MS since they may provide another avenue of MS treatment. Some also think that vascular disease may even be a cause of MS. The back of the eye, the retina, is well-suited to studying vascular diseases as blood vessels can be ...

Background Neointimal hyperplasia plays a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of in-stent restenosis in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary interventions. Drug-eluting balloons are a promising tool to prevent restenosis after coronary angioplasty. Moreover, an increased knowledge of the pathophysiology of restenosis my help improve therapeutic strategies. Methods We present the design of an open-label, randomized three-arm clinical trial aimed to assess whether a strategy of bare-metal stent implantation with additional use of drug-eluting balloons, either before (pre-dilation) or after stenting (post-dilation), reduces the primary endpoint of in-stent neointimal hyperplasia area as compared with a strategy of bare-metal stent implantation alone. This ...

This prospective, randomized trial will compare the extent of covered stent strut segments by assessed by Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) of the ORSIRO DES with that of the XIENCE PRIME DES, which is the standard of choice of contemporary drug eluting stents (DES).

The purpose of this study is to evaluate data gathered from new Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SDOCT) hardware and software designed for intraoperative application of SDOCT in vitreoretinal surgery and to conduct sufficient human pilot trials to provide useful design feedback for optimization of the technology and evaluation of its potential.

Thinning of fibrous cap in atherosclerotic plaques is associated with plaque vulnerability. The high resolution of optical coherence tomography (OCT) provides an accurate measurement of fibrous cap thickness. Endothelial dysfunction is a key component of vulnerable plaque and digital reactive hyperemia-peripheral arterial tonometry (RH-PAT) is a non-invasive automatic and quantitative method to evaluate endothelial function. The investigators will investigate the association between endothelial function assessed by RH-PAT and plaque vulnerability determined by OCT-derived thin-cap fibroatheroma (TCFA).

The purpose of this study is to compare the degree of stent malapposition on an immediate optical coherence tomography (OCT) after nominal stent pressure and at a final post-procedure OCT (ANCHOR-I) and the neointimal coverage on 3-months OCT following the intervention with the randomly assigned two drug-eluting stents (DES), PromusTMElementTM stents versus Xience PRIME® stents

10 mg daily or matching placebo for 12 months, starting at the time of hospital dismissal from surgery. The primary goal of the study is to determine whether prasugrel administration will prevent thrombus (clot) formation within a saphenous vein graft at 12 months, as examined by optical coherence tomography.

The investigators will obtain human skin specimen (sized approximately 1 cm x 1 cm) for dermatological surgical patients in National Taiwan University Hospital, after informed consent was obtained. Human skin keratinocytes, fibroblasts, and melanocytes will be cultured from the human skin specimen. The three dimensional images of these cultured cells will be observed by a ultra-high resolution 3-dimensional optical coherence tomography.

Background It is commonly believed that a heart attack is caused by rupture of a plaque in the wall of the coronary artery, resulting in blood clots which impede blood flow. Currently, the investigators do not know whether heart attacks in patients who had a recent surgery are caused by the same disease process as those who did not have any surgery. This study will inform the investigators of very vital information about the cause of surgery-related heart attacks by taking images of coronary arteries using Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). Images will also be taken from heart attack patients who ...

The primary objective of this clinical trial is to evaluate the performance of the Nvision Volumetric Laser Endomicroscopy (VLE) system to visualize subsurface tissue in subjects undergoing esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) and to identify work-flow and training implications for introducing this new imaging modality

The purpose of the study is to demonstrate the non-inferiority of Cre8 (CID) Drug Eluting Stent, studied 3 months after implant, compared to Vision/Multilink8 Bare Metal Stent (Abbott) studied at 1 month, in terms of neointimal coverage, determined by Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), as percentage of cross-sections with RUTTS (Ratio of Uncovered to Total Stent Struts Per Cross Section) score ≤ 0.3.

Cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) is a progressive disease of the coronary arteries in transplanted hearts which is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. The broad objective of this research study is to advance our ability to diagnose as early as possible the presence of CAV and to non-invasively predict those patients at increased risk of CAV with novel techniques. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a novel intracoronary imaging technique using an optical analog of ultrasound with a resolution 10 times greater resolution than intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in peripheral blood have been shown to play a ...

This is a single-arm, prospective, study of an optical imaging device on approximately twenty (20) subjects undergoing lumpectomies at one study site. In vivo and ex vivo imaging will be performed on study subjects with results being compared to final pathology. This study is a single-center, prospective, two-part open label study of an optical imaging device on approximately twenty (20) subjects at one (1) study site. Patients scheduled to undergo a lumpectomy will be recruited by the clinical investigators at the investigational site in accordance with the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The study period per subject is the time it ...

The purpose of this study is to learn more about lipid rich plaque using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS)/Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS) imaging in patients who have had coronary artery stenting and Optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging.

It has been hypothesized that one of the benefits of bosentan relates to pulmonary vascular remodeling. The investigators believe that this study will help document the nature of beneficial changes that occur in patients with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) in response to bosentan therapy. In turn, demonstrating that changes in pulmonary vascular structure and function accompany clinical improvement.