Clinical trials

The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate whether low-dose colchicine can slow disease progression in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder affecting motor neurons. The study is designed to answer whether patients receiving colchicine show a slower decline in functional status, as measured by the ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R), over a 30-week double-blind treatment period compared to patients receiving placebo. Additional questions include whether colchicine has an effect on respiratory function, disability progression, quality of life, and overall survival. Researchers will compare participants receiving colchicine at a dose of 0.005 mg/kg/day with those receiving placebo, both in addition to standard-of-care therapy with riluzole, to assess potential differences in disease progression. Participants will be randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to colchicine or placebo. They will take the assigned study medication for 30 weeks during a double-blind phase and then continue into a 36-week open-label extension phase, during which all participants will receive colchicine while remaining blinded to their initial treatment assignment. Throughout the study, participants will undergo regular clinical evaluations, including assessments of motor and respiratory function, functional disability, and quality of life, for a total follow-up period of up to 66 weeks. Blood samples will also be collected to investigate biological markers of neurodegeneration and inflammation.

This study is an interventional open label prospective study that aims to assess both overall and disease-free survival of patients treated with LDLT, partial or whole graft LT from deceased donors for unresectable CRLM. Secondary outcomes are graft survival and donor outcomes in terms of safety and quality of life. Donor selection is performed according to the currently used Institutional and National standards and protocols.

The primary goal of this observational study is to describe the distribution of treatment options and patients' characteristics according to the definition of high-risk status in the early breast cancer (EBC) setting. Participants already taking intervention as part of their regular medical care for EBC will answer questionnaires to also assess quality of life and patient reported outcomes. The recruitment phase will last about 2 years, each patient will be followed up for 5 years.

Observational study on the influence of frailty on cardiovascular risk in COPD.

Visceral arteries pathologies are a broad-spectrum of conditions with an extremely low incidence, estimated at 9.2% and 6.2% per 100,000 inhabitants for chronic and acute mesenteric ischemia, respectively, and 0.01-0.2% for aneurysms. The literature regarding the topic is limited in number and fragmented, having multiple vessels involved along with rare conditions caused by different aetiologies. However, these diseases are of utmost importance considering that acute presentation is common and the treatment in urgent setting is challenging and still facing high mortality rates. There are still several grey areas regarding the treatment of these pathologies. The last decades showed an increasing utilization of an endovascular approach to treat visceral vessel diseases. On one hand, the early- and mid-term superiority of endovascular revascularization vs. open surgical repair has been demonstrated considering the reduction of morbidity and mortality, and length of stay. However, publications reporting long-term (\> five years) are still lacking. This study is a real-word, ambispective, multi-arm, multicenter study that aims to evaluate the long-term results of visceral vessel revascularization in different diseases, districts, and approaches. Patients will be divided according to the target vessel and index disease. For each subgroup, a comparison between endovascular and open repair will be performed. The primary outcome is to compare endovascular and open approach in terms of survival, further divided into overall and disease-related mortality, during long term follow-up (\> 5 years). Moreover, early and mid-term data should be considered to provide reliable results. This outcome will be stratified as well within each disease- specific arm. At the study launch, data collection of patients who have undergone visceral vessels revascularization in the previous 20 years will begin. At the same time, all new cases of visceral vessel revascularization will be proposed for enrollment and follow-up in the prospective arm. The retrospective cohort will provide informative results regarding the long-term survival of these patients. This information will be used to adjust the sample size for the prospective cohort.

Luteinizing hormone (LH) plays an important role in follicular development, especially in the later stages of folliculogenesis. Theca interstitial cells and, later, granulosa cells express high concentrations of receptors for LH (LH-R). LH modulates the progressive remodeling and growth of the follicle . New evidence points to a role for LH in promoting ovarian follicle growth and maturation, even at very early stages of folliculogenesis. Studies analyzing LH-R expression profiles in the ovary have shown that LH-R is moderately expressed even in the smallest follicles, during what is known as the gonadotropin-independent phase . Immunohistochemical studies that examined the localization of LH-R in human follicles through different stages of follicular development reveal that LH-R is expressed by granulosa cells and some thecal cells in small pre-antral follicles LH promotes the transition of follicles to the antral stage, thus leading to an increase in functional ovarian reserve. Early follicular stages, particularly those between the primordial and pre-antral stages, are critical as they regulate the rate of follicle recruitment. The potential roles of LH in the early follicular phase were analyzed in a prospective, randomized multicenter study using a sequential approach to stimulation with recombinant human r-LH, followed by r-FSH, in women in hypogonadotropic hypogonadism because they were profoundly down-regulated by the administration of depo agonist GnRH analog. LH treatment was associated with an increase in small antral follicles before FSH stimulation and a higher number of normally fertilized embryos. In addition, AMH hormone was found to be significantly increased in both groups during the week prior to FSH stimulation These results seem to indicate that, if the reduction in the number of antral follicles is not due to a decrease in the number of primordial follicles, but to a slowing of progression, as in the case of women with long-standing hypothalamic amenorrhea, there may be room for a therapeutic approach. This is with the aim of improving the response to ovarian stimulation of the aforementioned patients who present with anovulatory cycles and in a condition of hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. A recent case series described two patients suffering from hypothalamic amenorrhea with very low levels of endogenous gonadotropins, and ovulatory factor infertility. These patients were treated with exogenous LH for one to two months (prolonged administration of LH). Increased levels of both AMH and AFC were demonstrated, and they responded adequately to ovarian stimulation. The purpose of this multicenter prospective randomized study follows recent publications confirming the implementation of ovarian reserve by supplementation with pretreatment with r-LH, a drug already on the market and routinely used in conventional controlled ovarian stimulation protocols. The aim is to confirm that pretreatment with rhLH at a dose of 185.5 IU/day for 60 days can improve ovarian reserve, as indicated by increased baseline AMH and AFC, compared with no pretreatment. The primary outcome is serum AMH value after treatment with r-LH and without. The planned duration of the study is 18 months, and a total of 84 patients are to be recruited. Patients will be randomized into two groups: group A who will receive pre-treatment with r-LH 185.5IU/day for 60 days and group B who will not receive pre-treatment. Patients will have a monitoring visit every two weeks for the duration of treatment, during which an ultrasound and blood sampling will be performed to evaluate the hormonal picture. Following pretreatment, a visit of with assessment of serum AMH and AFC value will be performed and the planned IVF cycle will be started. This will be followed by an additional final follow-up visit to collect obstetric and newborn outcomes that will be conducted by telephone

Considering the high prevalence of cardiovascular disease in Turner syndrome patients, noninvasive cardiac imaging is crucial for diagnosis and follow-up. From the review of the literature, it was evident that the imaging techniques used involved the evaluation of only the thoracic findings, in particular the heart and the thoracic aorta, while no data are currently available on the distal abdominal aorta or iliac arteries, since ultrasound and MRI are interrupted at the diaphragmatic level.

This is an observational, longitudinal, single-center study. The study is divided in two phases: * FIRST PHASE (retrospective): registration of all patients affected by pituitary disorders followed at the Unit of Endocrinology of Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria of Modena * SECOND PHASE (prospective): enrollment of all patients affected by pituitary disorders who attend the Unit of Endocrinology of the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria of Modena. An anonymized database will be created to collect the data of the patients. In particular, the data collected for each patient will include: personal data, data relating to pituitary pathology, symptoms at diagnosis, physical examination, radiological imaging, visual field data, data on surgical intervention, data on histological examination, biohumoral examinations, hormone tests, densitometric data, data on replacement therapies, medical therapies or other pharmacological therapies, data on comorbidities.

With this study the Investigator expects to develop a precise patient-centered model of care by means of home ultra-long-term EEG monitoring with a minimally invasive wearable EEG device (sqEEG). The following aims will be pursued: 1. to assess the sensitivity, reliability, and safety of sqEEG to record seizures over prolonged periods; 2. to verify sensitivity and reliability of automated seizure detection algorithms and to assess circadian and ultradian seizure/interictal epileptic discharges; distribution for the development of personalized seizure action plan; 3. to evaluate whether data collected with sqEEG can improve the clinical management of the patients and treatment outcomes. The investigator expects to use this wearable at-home EEG device to obtain an objective quantification of electrographic and electro-clinical seizures over a twelve-week period up to twenty-four weeks at home. The precise quantification of seizures is essential for a tailored treatment approach and to effectively monitor the response to treatment adjustments. The potential innovation of this approach relies on the possibility of managing the patient at home, reducing the side effects related to hospitalization and objectively quantifying the disease burden in the real-life setting with the aim of improve globally the patients' quality of life.

The goal of this study is to learn from discordant twins affected by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and/or Frontotemporal Dementia the contribution of genetic background versus environmental exposure. The main questions it aims to answer is: * How far does the genetic background explain the onset of ALS/FTD in discordant twins? * Which environmental factors and events occurring in post-fetal life influence the onset or progression of this neurodegenerative condition? Participants with ALS and/or FTD with a monozygotic or dizygotic twin willing to contribute to this research will be followed up for two years by specialized Motor Neuron Disorders centers in Italy, donating biological specimen for -omic sciences analysis, and checking out if prodromal signs/symptoms of these two conditions will develop during time.

This is a Phase II, non-randomized, multicenter, unblinded open-label study of Olaparib in monotherapy in participants with advanced (locally advanced/metastatic) PALB2-related pancreatic cancer that have progressed after at least one treatment for advanced disease.

The use of devices for liver grafts perfusion before transplantation, either hypothermic (HOPE) or normothermic (NMP), is rapidly spreading thanks to the promising results obtained so far in terms of graft survival and post-operative morbidity. Besides the well-established ability to increase the rate of transplantability of extended criteria donors (ECD) and donors after cardiac death (DCD), the use of machine perfusion (MP) may also improve the oncological outcomes of patients affected by hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing liver transplantation (LT). The underlying mechanism is represented by the modulation of the ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI)-related cellular damage obtained by the liver graft perfusion with HOPE before LT. The identification of biomarkers able to predict graft outcomes and highlight the mechanism of graft injury before transplantation rapidly and in non-invasive manner is therefore needed. Mass spectrometry-based metabolomics has already shown its potential by using perfusion liquids or pre-implantation biopsies. The aim of the investigators is to run an open-label, randomised, controlled trial to study the impact of treating standard liver grafts from brain dead donors (DBD) with HOPE before liver transplant in patients affected by HCC. Patients aged 18-75 years presenting with HCC Milan-in at listing will be considered for inclusion. Presence of extra-hepatic disease and general contraindications to liver transplantation as defined by the local tumor board are considered as exclusion criteria. Eligible patients will be randomly assigned (1:1) with the use of a dedicated software to MP (intervention group) or no-MP (control group) before liver transplantation. Untargeted mass spectrometry metabolomics (UHPLC-HRMS) will be performed on liver graft perfusate, liver graft biopsy and recipient blood samples, to identify by classification methods, novel predictive markers of IRI. Furthermore, rapid targeted MS approaches will be performed on VIP metabolites and known key compounds (such as TCA, aminoacids, energy metabolism) to rapidly assess graft function as well as post-operative outcome. Blood samples of the recipient will be collected at two checkpoints (listing, and 3 months after liver transplant) to evaluate exosomes and miRNA expression fluctuations (liquid biopsy). Primary outcomes of the study will be overall survival, graft survival and recurrence-free survival at 1- and 2-years. Survival results will be compared to those expected based on the Metroticket 2.0 score to assess the impact of MP in reducing the risk of HCC recurrence. Patients will remain in follow-up as for clinical practice to assess 3- and 5-years survival. Secondary end-point will be to define liquid biopsy efficacy to predict HCC recurrence and to define the correlation between metabolomic observations and HCC recurrence pattern.