Archives: Clinical Trials

The investigators want to study whether the use of painting art therapy has an influence on the quality of life, the complication rate and the general outcome of major abdominal surgery. The painting art therapy is carried out according to the protocol of (LOM® Solution Centered Art Therapy) by trained painting art therapists.

The purpose of this study is to compare overall survival of quemliclustat, nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine versus placebo, nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine in all randomized patients.

The purpose of the study is to assess the feasibility and patient satisfaction with the Support through Remote Observation and Nutrition Guidance (STRONG) program. The program provides nutrition and supportive care for participants living with pancreatic cancer who are receiving chemotherapy.

Background:

* Gastrointestinal cancers are among the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the United States.
* There are currently no tests to predict how patients with gastrointestinal cancers will respond to radiation therapy or which patients may develop side effects from treatment.
* Studies on tumor cells in the stool, urine, or blood from patients may provide valuable information that can be used to develop tests to determine which patients may need more or less aggressive therapy.
* Studies of other substances in the stool, urine, or blood from patients may provide valuable information that can be used to develop tests to determine which patients are likely to develop side effects from radiation treatments.

Objectives:

* To collect blood, urine and stool specimens from patients with gastrointestinal cancers who will undergo radiation therapy.
* To study hormone and protein changes in these blood, urine and stool specimens before, during and after radiation treatment in order to develop a way to predict how gastrointestinal cancers will respond to radiation therapy and if patients with these cancers will develop side effects from radiation treatment.

Eligibility:

-Patients 18 years of age and older with cancer of the gastrointestinal tract (esophagus, stomach, pancreas, rectum) who plan to receive radiotherapy to the site of the cancer on an National Cancer Institute (NCI) protocol

Design:

Participants undergo the following procedures:

* Tumor biopsy: Before any treatment or at the time of surgery if it is the first treatment
* Urine collection: Before, during, and after treatment and at follow-up visits.
* Stool collection: Before, during, and after treatment and at follow-up visits.
* Blood collection: Before, during, and after treatment and at follow-up visits.
* Intestinal permeability assessment: Before any treatment, before radiation (if radiation is not the first treatment), 1 month after radiation is completed, and 3 months after radiation is completed. This test determines how the patients intestines are working to absorb sugar and may provide information about side effects from radiation treatments. Patients fast after midnight, then drink a small glass of sugars, and then do a 6-hour urine collection.

This is a randomized prospective clinical study comparing the Acquire Biopsy Device to SharkCore Biopsy Device.

The purpose of this study is to track outcomes and complications of patients at IUMC referred by physicians for EUS-guided pancreatic cyst ablation. This information is essential in order to disseminate future published information to physicians about this technique. A database will be created to track these patients undergoing an already scheduled/planned procedure. Phone calls at selected intervals will be made following the procedure to track any complications that occur

There are several types of early pre-cancerous lesions found in the pancreas which have the potential to develop into pancreatic cancer. Although different patients' pancreatic cancers or pre-cancerous pancreatic lesions have many similarities we believe that subtle differences can affect how they behave and therefore influence individual patient outcomes. Many factors may account for the differences seen in pancreatic lesion behaviour, for example molecular and genetic differences (the DNA and RNA present which control how a cell grows and divides), differences in how the immune system responds to the lesion, differences in the environment immediately around the lesion in the pancreas, known as the tumour microenvironment and differences in the micro-organisms which colonize a particular patient, known as their microbiota .

This project studies the molecular makeup of pancreatic lesions and their microenvironment at various stages (from pre-cancerous lesions all the way through to more advanced disease) to see if we can use this information to divide patients into different groups whose lesions may behave in similar ways. We will be trying to find out if there are molecular reasons why some patients respond to particular treatments when others do not, why some patients experience more toxicity with particular treatments and why some patients' disease behaves particularly aggressively when other patients' disease does not. We will also be investigating the particular micro-organisms colonizing individual patients to see if these impact a patient's outcome. Understanding what makes one person's pancreatic lesion behave differently to another's could lead to better treatment, where a personalized therapeutic strategy could be applied for every single patient.

This study is being conducted to identify altered genetic factors that may exist and influence endocrine cancers in unrelated MEN1 families with different cancers. A grading system will be developed for endocrine cancers, including pancreatic cancers, thymus gland cancers, parathyroid disease and MEN1 syndrome as low-risk and high-risk to improve screening and timing of surgery.

This is an open-label, multi-centre, randomised, stratified, phase IIb clinical trial of ATRA administered in combination with gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel in patients with laPDAC.

Pancreatic resections carry a high risk for complications, especially pancreatic fistula. Both hydrocortisone and pasireotide have been shown to be effective in reducing complications in earlier RCTs. The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness and safety of these two drugs in preventing complications of pancreatic surgery.