Maryland Paid Clinical Trials

This study will evaluate the safety and effectiveness of the Globe® Pulsed Field System for treating patients with symptomatic paroxysmal or persistent atrial fibrillation (AF). Read Less

Background: Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant involves taking blood stem cells from a donor and giving them to a recipient. The transplants are used to treat certain diseases and cancers. Researchers want to see if the transplant can treat VEXAS Syndrome. Objective: To see if stem cell transplants can be successfully performed in people with VEXAS and even improve the disease. Eligibility: People ages 18-75 who have VEXAS Syndrome that has caused significant health problems and standard treatment either has not worked or is not available. Design: Participants will be screened with: Physical exam Medical review Blood and urine tests Heart and lung function tests Bone marrow biopsy Participants will have a chest x-ray. They will have an imaging scan of the head, chest, abdomen, pelvis, and sinus. They will have a bone density scan. They will have a dental exam and eye exam. They will meet with specialists. They will repeat some screening tests. Participants will be admitted to the NIH hospital. They have a central venous catheter put into a vein in the chest or neck. They will receive drugs to prepare their bone marrow for the transplant. They may have total body irradiation. They will receive the donor stem cells through the catheter. They will get other drugs to prevent complications and infections. After discharge, they must stay in the DC area for 3 months for weekly study visits. Participants will have study visits 30, 60, 100, 180, 210, 240, 300, and 360 days later. After that, they will have yearly visits for 2 years and then be contacted yearly by phone.... Read Less

Background: About 5% to 10% of differentiated thyroid cancers become resistant to standard treatment with radioactive iodine. In these cases, treatment options are limited and generally not effective. Researchers want to see if they can better detect thyroid tumors by using a compound called 68Gallium-DOTATATE. This compound may bind to a tumor and make it visible during a positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) scan. This information might help guide future research and treatment. Objective: To identify the people with thyroid cancer whose tumors have a high uptake of 68Gallium-DOTATATE as analyzed by imaging with PET/CT. Eligibility: People ages 18 years and older with thyroid cancer that has spread outside of the thyroid. Design: Participants will have a medical exam. They will give blood and urine samples. Some samples will be used for research. Participants will have imaging scans that follow standard of care. These scans may include: CT scan of the neck, chest, abdomen, and pelvis Bone scan Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain, spine, or liver 18-FDG-PET/CT as needed Participants will have a PET/CT scan. They will get an intravenous (IV) line. They will get an IV injection of 68Gallium-DOTATATE. It contains radioactive tracers. The PET/CT scanner is shaped like a large donut. It contains crystals. The crystals pick up small radiation signals that are given off by the tracers. The CT part of the scan uses low-dose x-rays. The pictures made by the scanner show where the tracers are in the body. The session will last 90 minutes. Participation will last for about 3 months.... Read Less

Falls are by far the leading cause of accidental injury and death in older adults. The Veteran population is more severely affected by falls since it is significantly older than the overall population (45% over 65 years of age vs. 13%); and Veterans would benefit substantially more from an accurate diagnosis and treatment of fall propensity. Despite its importance, much is still unknown about the manner in which balance control is compromised by age and disease. Therapeutic interventions for people who are at risk of falling have proven to be of limited utility. Engineering methods are well suited to study and evaluate balance; but have to date been applied to overly simplified scenarios that lack the complexity to probe the musculoskeletal and neurophysiological bases for balance and falls. The long term objective of this research, which began with a VA Rehabilitation Research \& Development (RR\&D) Career Development Award (CDA-2), is to develop improved directives and protocols for the diagnosis and treatment of balance-related posture and movement coordination problems. This proposal significantly advances engineering methods to address existing gaps in the diagnosis and treatment of balance impairments through the development of a Balanced Assessment and Training Protocol (BATP). The BATP continuously challenges subjects to perform reaching tasks at the limits of their balance for an extended period of time, and increases these limits as subjects demonstrate improved performance. The goal of this tool is to quantitatively assess and improve at-risk individuals' ability to maintain balance when disturbed by volitional movements of the body and its parts-an important class of balance disturbances integral to many activities of daily living that can precipitate falls. The BATP focuses on performance at and just beyond the limits of balance, unlike most such tests and training protocols that do not challenge subjects in this way. The BATP's most immediate and salient metric is the limiting boundary of standing reach; and we hypothesize that expanding this boundary, as the BATP is designed to do, will improve balance and make individuals more resistant to falls (in the context of expected balance disturbances). Confirmation of this hypothesis could provide a new perspective on existing training protocols' modest success rates, and direction for the design of new protocols with the potential to significantly improve these rates. \[Though the BATP is a training platform, we also believe that the performance metrics and analytical results produced by it can form the basis for new diagnostic measures that more reliably and precisely quantify and explain balance performance problems; and track changes in them over time.\] Such diagnostic and treatment protocols would be particularly beneficial to the VA Health Care System, as it would lead to improvements in: patient throughput, quality of care, and treatment costs. Though this proposal targets the aging Veteran population, the BATP is a general tool that can aid in the diagnosis and treatment of balance disorders arising from conditions other than aging. These include obesity, diabetes (which often leads to lower extremity muscle degeneration and peripheral neuropathy), sarcopenia, vestibular disorders, and neurological disorders such as stroke. Veterans whose balance has been compromised by Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) (whether combat-related or not) may also benefit from the BATP. Read Less

This is a proposal to develop a Balanced Reach Training Protocol (BRTP) to evaluate and train dynamic standing balance. The BRTP is based upon the Balanced Reach Test (BRT) that the investigators previously developed and validated. In the BRT subjects stand and point to a target disk moving unpredictably across a large projection screen in front of them without stepping. Body movements undertaken to track the disk are integral to many daily activities and represent an important class of "expected" balance disturbances that can precipitate falls. The BRTP employs engineering and psychophysical methods, and exploits advances in real time computing in a novel and innovative way to more effectively evaluate and train balance function. The BRTP presents a challenging reaching/tracking task that subjects perform at their limit of balance. The BRTP is an objective, quantitative test that can evaluate balance function without floor or ceiling effects, and train balance across the spectrum of aging, disease, and injury. Read Less

Background: Studies show that rare genetic variants might lead to diseases. Researchers want to collect blood and tissue samples so they can study them and better understand diseases. Objective: To collect blood and tissue samples for studies to identify underlying causes of disease. Eligibility: People of all ages Design: Participants will have blood and/or tissue samples collected. Samples can be collected at the NIH Clinical Center. Participants doctors can collect the samples and send them to NIH. NIH staff can collect samples off site. For blood samples, blood is taken from an arm vein using a needle. Tissue collection may involve: Buccal smear: Cells are collected by scraping the inside of the cheek with a cotton swab. Saliva collection: Participants spit into a cup. Skin biopsy: A special needle takes a very small skin sample. Surgical waste tissue: If participants have surgery, NIH may receive samples of tissue that would routinely be removed. Umbilical cord or cord blood collection: If a participant has a baby, NIH may receive a small piece of the umbilical cord or blood from the cord once the baby is delivered. Read Less

Injuries to the genitalia are of concern to the military with emphasis placed on the surgical reconstruction and psychological health of these Wounded Warriors. However, despite significant surgical advances in microvascular surgery and autologous free tissue transfer, conventional reconstructions cannot truly replace the complicated structures and functions of the penis including the urethra, erogenous sensation, and erectile corporal bodies. Conventional reconstruction poses several challenges: patients may not have sufficient donor tissue due to other injuries or previous surgery; multiple operations are often needed to restore the neophallus; the final reconstruction only approximates the penis' native form; recreating the urethra is challenging and the new urethra is prone to stricture and fistula formation; the erectile function necessary for sexual intercourse is often lacking; and insufficient protective sensation can lead to penile implant extrusion, infection, subsequent explantation or loss of the reconstruction. The investigators propose this clinical trial to determine functional outcomes and quality of life for Wounded Warriors and civilians who choose to undergo penile allotransplantation. The investigators will combine extensive experience performing total penile reconstruction in a large population affected by congenital, traumatic, and therapeutically extirpated Genitourinary deformities and expertise in reconstructive transplantation using an immunomodulatory protocol to for this study. The investigators anticipate penile transplantation can potentially replace "like with like," restoring the appearance, anatomy, and function of the recipient in a manner far superior to autologous reconstruction. This project will establish the ability to perform penile allotransplantation using an immunomodulatory protocol and will compare outcomes with conventional phalloplasty patient results. Study Design: This is a non-randomized subject self-controlled clinical trial to implement a cell-based immunomodulatory protocol for penile allotransplantation. An intermediate deliverable is achieving allograft survival and functional return with reduced dosing/frequency of maintenance immunosuppression on steroid-free monotherapy (tacrolimus) immunosuppression. The long-term deliverable and goal is to demonstrate superior outcomes when compared to satisfaction and QOL in conventional phalloplasty patients 12-60 months post-transplant. Read Less

Background: - Recent advances in cancer research have led to new therapies to treat the disease. It is important to continue these advances and discover new ones. To do that, researchers need tissue samples from solid tumors. This study will collect such samples from people already scheduled to have a procedure at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (NIHCC). Objectives: - To collect tissue samples for use in studying new ways to treat tumors. Eligibility: * Adults 18 years and older, with a precancerous or cancerous solid tumor who are scheduled to have surgery or a biopsy at the NIHCC. * Children under the age of 18 but who are older than 2 years of age are eligible to be enrolled on the research sample collection portion of this study if they will have a biopsy or surgery as part of their medical care. Design: * Before their procedure, participants will have a small blood sample taken. * Some participants will undergo leukapheresis. In this procedure, blood is removed through a tube in one arm and circulated through a machine that removes white blood cells. The blood, minus the white blood cells, is returned through a tube in the other arm. The procedure takes 3-4 hours. * For all participants, during the surgery or biopsy, pieces of the tumor and pieces of normal tissue near it will be removed for this study. The rest of the tumor or precancerous growth will be sent to a lab for analysis. * Participants will return to the clinic about 6 weeks after the operation for a routine checkup. Some may have to return for additional follow-up. Read Less

This protocol is being established to cover the evaluation of patients with inflammatory and/or infectious diseases which are not covered under previously existing protocols. The purpose of such a protocol is that frequently patients are referred to us with either diagnosed or undiagnosed illnesses which would be of interest to our teaching program or which would serve as a source of patients to subsequently be entered into established, ongoing protocol studies. Such patients will be admitted to the protocol and handled according to accepted medical practice of diagnosis and treatment. Read Less

This study will examine the different types of proteins present in the lungs of patients with pneumonia to explore the causes of different types of the disease. Pneumonia is a condition that causes lung inflammation AND is often caused by an infection. It is usually diagnosed by lung x-rays and listening to the chest with a stethoscope. This method can diagnose pneumonia, but it does not provide information on the cause of the inflammation - information that might be helpful in guiding treatment. This study will measure proteins in the lungs of patients to see if certain proteins are associated with specific forms of pneumonia, and can thus serve as biomarkers for disease. Patients undergoing diagnostic bronchoscopy at the NIH Clinical Center may participate in this study. Patients will undergo bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage as scheduled for their medical care. For this procedure, the patient's mouth and throat are numbed with lidocaine; a sedative may be given for comfort. A thin flexible tube called a bronchoscope is advanced through the nose or mouth into the lung airways to examine the airways carefully. Saline (salt water) is then injected through the bronchoscope into the air passage, acting as a rinse. A sample of fluid is then withdrawn for microscopic examination. Researchers in the current study will use some of the fluid obtained from the lavage to examine for protein content. In addition to the bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage, participants will have about 2 tablespoons of blood drawn to compare blood test results with the results of the lung washings. Patients' medical records will be reviewed to obtain information on past medical history, current medical treatment, vital signs, and results of x-ray tests. Read Less

Hypoglycemia is the term used to refer to lower than normal levels of blood sugar. This study will continue to research the causes of hypoglycemia. Patients involved in the study will be admitted to the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and undergo tests for evaluating blood sugar. Patients will be required to refrain from eating for a set period of time and will undergo blood tests for insulin levels and several other specific diagnostic tests related to insulin secretion. The patients will be under supervision and will be provided with appropriate medical and surgical attention as needed. Read Less

Randomized, triple-masked, parallel arm clinical trial of empagliflozin versus placebo in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) participants on stable approved PAH-targeted medical therapy. Read Less