Gainesville, FL Paid Clinical Trials

This phase II trial studies how well TPIV100 and sargramostim work in treating patients with HER2 positive, stage II-III breast cancer that has residual disease after chemotherapy prior to surgery. It also studies why some HER2 positive breast cancer patients respond better to chemotherapy in combination with trastuzumab and pertuzumab. TPIV100 is a type of vaccine made from HER2 peptide that may help the body build an effective immune response to kill tumor cells that express HER2. Sargramostim increases the number of white blood cells in the body following chemotherapy for certain types of cancer and is used to alert the immune system. It is not yet known if TPIV100 and sargramostim will work better in treating patients with HER2 positive, stage II-III breast cancer. Read Less

Gut microbiota play an important role in normal cardiovascular function and pathophysiology of cardiovascular diseases. Patients with heart failure (HF) have substantial hemodynamic changes which lead to intestinal hypoperfusion and congestion and eventually change gut morphology, permeability, function and composition of gut microbiota and cause translocation of microbial and endotoxins into the blood stream. Additionally, metabolites derived from gut microbiota modulate the pathophysiology of HF. Patients with HF have intestinal overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria and increased gut permeability. Accumulating evidence demonstrates that antibiotic treatment benefits patients with acute coronary syndromes and reduces the incidence of ischemic cardiovascular events. Taking the strong association of gut microbiota with HF into account, it is reasonable to speculate that gut microbiota could contribute to the progression of pre-HF with preserved ejection fraction (pre-HFpEF) to HF with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Pre-HFpEF remains poorly understood, yet has high prevalence and a significantly high risk for death in comparison to patient without pre-HFpEF. We hypothesize that altered gut microbiota is involved in the initiation and establishment of HF and pre-HFpEF. Read Less

Childhood chronic vasculitis describes a group of rare life-threatening diseases that have in common inflammation of blood vessels in vital organs such as kidneys, lungs and brain. Most knowledge about them comes from adult patients. Severe disease requires aggressive life-saving treatments with steroids and some cancer drugs which can themselves cause damage, and increase risks of cancer and severe infections. Conversely, milder disease can be treated with less toxic drugs. Different classification and "scoring tools" are used to define the types and severity of vasculitis and to measure damage caused by disease or drugs. These in turn help direct how aggressively to treat a patient and to measure outcome. None of these tools however have been assessed in children and the best balance of disease and treatment risks against outcome for children is not known. Although causes of these diseases in children and adults are probably the same, the effects of the disease and the response (good and bad) to drugs will differ in growing children. Because specialists may see only one new child with vasculitis each year, obtaining enough information to learn about childhood vasculitis requires cooperation. We will use an international web-based registry to which doctors from 50 or more centers can contribute patient data. We will determine the features which help better classify and diagnose children compared to adults. Through the web we will collect and analyze information on patients similarly classified and "scored" so that most successful treatments can be identified. Children with vasculitis are less likely to have diseases associated with aging, alcohol and smoking etc., and therefore may be a better group in whom to study the underlying biology of vasculitis. We will use this opportunity and collect spit, blood and tissue from registry patients for laboratory study with an aim to find biomarkers to better classify, define and direct optimal treatment and outcomes. Read Less

This clinical study is conducted to develop a new test to identify prostate cancer patients at highest risk of radiotherapy-related complications, especially related to gastrolintestinal (GI) toxicities. This clinical study would allow monitoring of total tissue damage in blood samples as early as after the 2nd but before the 4th radiotherapy dose during week 1 of radiotherapy, which could help clinicians make treatment decisions. Detection of excessive tissue damage at this early time, well before symptoms occur, could allow doctors to tailor interventions which could include patient therapies that would reduce or prevent the problems that occur due to radiotherapy of their cancer. Read Less

Spinocerebellar ataxias (SCA) are genetic neurological diseases that cause imbalance, poor coordination, and speech difficulties. There are different kinds of SCA and this study will focus on types 1, 2,3, and 6 (SCA 1, SCA 2, SCA 3 , also known as Machado-Joseph disease and SCA 6). The diseases are rare, slowly progressive, cause increasingly severe neurological difficulties and are variable across and within genotypes. The purpose of this research study is to bring together a group of experts in the field of SCA for the purpose of learning more about the disease. The research questions are: 1. How does your disease progress over time? 2. What are the best ways to measure the progression? 3. Do some genes, other than the gene that is abnormal in your disease, have any effect on the way the disease behaves? This is a nationwide study and we expect that 800 patients will participate all over the USA. The participants will be in the study for an indeterminate period of time. Study visits will be done every 6 or 12 months depending on the participating site. Read Less

Hypertension (HTN) is the single most prevalent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Recent American Heart Association (AHA) statistics indicate that one-third of all adults in the United States of America suffer from HTN. Despite advances in life style modification and multi-drug therapies, 20-30% of all hypertensive patients remain resistant. These individuals exhibit autonomic dysregulation due to elevated sympathetic activity and norepinephrine spillover, and low parasympathetic activity. It is generally accepted that this uncontrolled, resistant HTN is primarily "neurogenic" in origin, involving over activity of the sympathetic nervous system that initiates and sustains HTN. A surgical approach such as the recently developed "Simplicity Catheter" assisted renal denervation remains one of the few options available to these patients. Thus, a mechanism-based breakthrough is imperative to develop novel strategies to prevent and perhaps eventually cure neurogenic hypertension (NH). This study is designed to evaluate a low and high dose of minocycline to test the hypothesis that minocycline treatment would produce antihypertensive effects in drug-resistant neurogenic hypertensive individuals. Minocycline has been selected because of its demonstrated effects on inhibiting microglial activation and its ability to penetrate the blood brain barrier. There is no other compound available that is safer and displays specificity better than Minocycline in inhibiting microglial activation. Thus, the potential therapeutic benefits of this inexpensive, well tolerated, already FDA-approved drug that has minimal side effects would be enormous. Read Less

This will be a multistate, multicenter clinical study to determine the efficacy and safety of medical cannabis for a wide variety of chronic medical conditions. Read Less

This is a comparative effectiveness study of two pragmatic models aiming to introduce palliative care for end stage liver disease patients. The 2 comparators are: Model 1: Consultative Palliative Care (i.e. direct access to Palliative Care provider), Model 2: Trained Hepatologist- led PC intervention (i.e. a hepatologist will receive formal training to deliver Palliative Care services) Primary Outcome: The change in quality of life from baseline to 3 months post enrollment as assessed by FACT-Hep (Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy- Hepatobiliary). 14 Clinical Centers across US are recruited to participate in this study. Read Less