Clinical Trials

Cesarean delivery has become the most common surgical procedure in the US. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been shown to improve the quality of post-cesarean analgesia and markedly reduce opioid consumption. The effect of NSAIDs on healthy volunteers results in inhibition of platelet aggregation and prolonged bleeding time. However, in the obstetric population, the presence and degree of platelet inhibition after NSAID exposure is less clear. The investigators plan to use Platelet Aggregometry and Thromboelastography (TEG) to evaluate the effect of ketorolac on platelets.

Doulas are trained individuals who offer informational, emotional, and physical support to their pregnant, birthing, and postpartum clients. The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a new intervention (called "Doula Link") is feasible to implement and acceptable to both doulas and their clients. The main questions it aims to answer are:

Is Doula Link feasible to implement and acceptable to doulas and their clients?

What are the preliminary differences in depression and anxiety between individuals working with doulas who received Doula Link compared to those who did not receive Doula Link?

Researchers will compare "Doula Link" to usual doula practice to see if Doula Link is feasible and has potential to improve mental health outcomes in postpartum individuals.

Doulas will be randomly assigned to either receive "Doula Link" or continue with their practice as usual.

Participating doulas assigned to Doula Link will receive training mental health and implementing an intervention called "Our Babies and Us"; receive access to a toolkit; receive access to perinatal psychiatrists and referral specialists for consultations; receive access to a support group

All participating doulas will be invited to complete surveys about their experience with Doula Link (if assigned to that group) and their experience providing care for their clients.

All participating clients (pregnant and postpartum individuals) will be invited to complete surveys about their experiences with their doulas, their own mental health, and their experiences with the health system.

The objective of this study is to investigate a technique to monitor blood pressure in women undergoing cesarean delivery with suspected placenta accreta spectrum. To achieve this objective, the investigators plan to conduct a prospective, observational study with the following aims:

Specific Aim 1: Compare concordance between the systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP), and mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) readings from the continuous non-invasive arterial blood pressure (CNAP) and IABP at several discrete points throughout the procedure

Specific Aim 2: Determine the feasibility of using CNAP to aid in decision making by examining the parameters of volume responsiveness and arterial elastance at several discrete points throughout the procedure.

The investigators hypothesize that the investigators can obtain similar blood pressure monitoring using CNAP as compared to the gold standard IABP in women undergoing cesarean delivery with suspected placenta accreta.

The primary objective of this study is to examine the safety and effectiveness of physician-modified endovascular grafts (PMEGs) for endovascular repair of complex aortic pathology in high-risk patients. The study is divided into three study arms based on the subject's aortic pathology: (1) Complex abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA); (2) Thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm; and (3) Aortic dissection.

The purpose of this study is to learn more about how brain stimulation affects word finding problems in people who have a traumatic brain injury (TBI). The type of brain stimulation used is called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). tDCS delivers low levels of electric current to the brain and high definition tDCS (HD-tDCS) delivers the current with multiple electrodes on the scalp. This current is delivered with HD-tDCS to parts of the brain that may help with remembering things. The investigators hope that this can help to improve word finding and memory problems in people with TBI.

This protocol will utilize the lymphedema indentometer, or durometer (a novel, noninvasive piece of equipment that measures skin elasticity), to better characterize disease progression in patients with lymphedema. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center patients who undergo treatment of lymphedema will be candidates for this noninvasive test. This device and the data it generates will help understand the incidence of lymphedema at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center compared to national data and the outcomes of surgical treatment of lymphedema.

Anesthesia is crucial during upper GI endoscopy in order to improve the procedural conditions for the interventionist, increase the quality of examination and alleviate patient discomfort. However, sedation during endoscopy carries a serious risk of blood oxygen desaturation.

This study aims to investigate the hypothesis if the application of high-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) during high-risk gastroscopy reduces the risk of blood oxygen levels to drop below a defined threshold. Enrolled patients will be randomly assigned to either the control group, receiving standard care during endoscopy, or the intervention group, receiving HFNO therapy during the procedure. Throughout the intervention, vital parameters will be recorded. Care providers will be asked to answer a questionnaire that specifically evaluates the effect of HFNO on patient safety and the procedure.

This study will explore whether a 21-minute meditation practice called Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya leads to changes in brain health and explore how it affects cognitive and physiological function.

The purpose of the project is to perform an RCT comparing patient satisfaction and outcome with or without the use of an expert panel. The purpose is also to create a registry to compare the effectiveness of decompression alone versus decompression with fusion for patients with degenerative grade I spondylolisthesis and symptomatic lumbar spinal stenosis. Primary analysis will focus on the patients' improvement from baseline patient-reported outcome questionnaires.

In addition, the SLIP II registry aims to (i) develop an algorithm which could identify cases in which surgical experts are likely to recommend one treatment (i.e. >80% of experts recommend one form of treatment) and (ii) develop a radiology-based machine learning algorithm that would prospectively classify patients as either 'stable' or 'unstable.'

In addition to patient reported outcomes, step counts will be collected in order to determine the correlation of step count with patient-reported outcomes (ODI and EQ-5D) and the need for re-operation.

This registry portion of the study aims to prospectively collect comparative data for these patients treated with either decompression alone or decompression with fusion.

Patients undergoing general anesthesia require mechanical ventilation (artificial delivery of air and oxygen to their lungs). It is well known that during mechanical ventilation, so-called atelectasis formation occurs. This is a condition characterized by partial or complete collapse of lung tissue that can result in a reduction in oxygen uptake through the lung. A known risk factor for atelectasis formation during mechanical ventilation is the utilization of high oxygen concentration, as the oxygen molecules are absorbed in the lung, which then can lead to collapse of the tissue. Despite the proven association, standard operating procedure at the end of anesthesia still requires utilization of 100% oxygen. Its justification is the goal to ensure sufficient oxygenation throughout the extubation phase. However, clinical observation doesn't show a lack of oxygenation in this phase, but the patient is still exposed to the risk of atelectasis formation.

This study aims to investigate the hypothesis of whether the utilization of reduced inspiratory oxygen concentration before extubation (70% or 40% compared to 100%) reduces atelectasis formation. The study was originally planned to randomize 24 patients to either 70% or 100% inspiratory oxygen concentration at the end of anaesthesia. After completion of this first phase, the study was amended to enroll another 24 patients randomized to 40% or 100% inspiratory oxygen concentration at the end of anaesthesia.

Of note, both concentrations are still higher than when breathing room air in, which has of 21% oxygen. During the intervention, parameters such as the oxygen content in the blood (oxygen saturation, SpO₂), heart rate, and blood pressure are recorded, and atelectasis formation is measured using a technique called electrical impedance tomography (EIT). EIT measurements are performed at designated time points during the procedure. Anesthesia care providers are asked to document procedural, patient, and ventilator data in a questionnaire. Secondary outcomes are the homogeneity and distribution of air measured with EIT, as well as some clinical outcomes including post-extubation desaturation (<90% SpO₂), incidence of re-intubation or non-invasive ventilation, and the Post-anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) length of stay.

The goal of this study is to evaluate the real-world safety and effectiveness of combining endobronchial valve (IBV) placement with endobronchial blood patching (EBP) for the treatment of persistent air leaks (PALs) in adult patients undergoing bronchoscopy. PALs are a challenging condition often associated with prolonged hospital stays, increased morbidity, and delayed recovery.

The main questions this study aims to answer are:

Does the combination of endobronchial valve placement and endobronchial blood patching accelerate resolution of persistent air leaks?

What are the procedural outcomes, complications, and hospital-related metrics (e.g., chest tube duration, length of stay, and readmission rates) associated with this technique?

Participants will:

Undergo standard-of-care bronchoscopy with identification of air leak source.

Receive intrabronchial instillation of autologous blood and tranexamic acid (TXA) followed by balloon occlusion and endobronchial valve placement.

Be followed for resolution of air leak and post-procedure outcomes through standard inpatient monitoring and data collection.

The goal of this clinical trial is to use urine tumor DNA (utDNA) as an indicator for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer to identify patients suitable for less frequent cystoscopy surveillance.

Infertility affects more than 6 million women the United States and is a major life event that results in a wide range of socio-cultural, emotional, physical and financial problems. The most successful treatment for infertility, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), fertilizes a woman's eggs with her partner's sperm in a culture dish and transfers the resulting embryos into the uterus. Most of the time, prior to being transferred, embryos are grown in the dish for 5-7 days after which some of them reach an advanced stage (blastocyst stage). This has several advantages such as a lower chance of a multiple pregnancies (twins, triplets etc.) after transfer and fewer transfer procedures. However, it is possible that embryos would survive better if transferred into the uterus at the 8-cell stage after growing them for only 3 days. Thus, when patients only have a small number of embryos they and their physicians face the difficult choice when to transfer because there are currently no studies available to guide this decision.

This randomized controlled trial is comparing pregnancy outcomes and patient satisfaction of poor prognosis patients with 5 or fewer embryos undergoing either transfer of an advanced (blastocyst) or an 8-cell embryo.

This study will provide the data for the development of guidelines for IVF providers to make evidence-based decisions when to transfer embryos in poor prognosis IVF patients, reduce patients' anxiety regarding cycle cancellation and improve patient counseling, which will increase patients' ability to participate in the development of their treatment plan.

The SATURN trial aims to determine whether continuation vs. discontinuation of statin drugs after spontaneous lobar intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is the best strategy; and whether the decision to continue/discontinue statins should be influenced by an individual's Apolipoprotein-E (APOE) genotype.

An MRI ancillary study (SATURN MRI), in a subset of SATURN participants , will evaluate the effects of continuation vs. discontinuation of statin drugs on hemorrhagic and ischemic MRI markers of cerebral small vessel disease, and whether the presence/burden of hemorrhagic markers (i.e. cerebral microbleeds and/or cortical superficial siderosis) on baseline MRI influences the risk of ICH recurrence on/off statin therapy.

Hallucinations are a core diagnostic feature of psychotic disorders. They involve different sensory modalities, including auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory hallucinations, among others. Hallucinations occur in multiple different neurological and psychiatric illnesses and can be refractory to existing treatments. Auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations are found across diagnostic categories of psychotic disorders (schizophrenia, schizoaffective, bipolar disorder). Despite visual hallucinations being approximately half as frequent as auditory hallucinations, they almost always co-occur with auditory hallucinations, and are linked to a more severe psychopathological profile. Auditory and visual hallucinations at baseline also predict higher disability, risk of relapse and duration of psychosis after 1 and 2 years, especially when they occur in combination. Using a newly validated technique termed lesion network mapping, researchers demonstrated that focal brain lesions connected to the right superior temporal sulcus (rSTS) plays a causal role in the development of hallucinations. The rSTS receives convergent somatosensory, auditory, and visual inputs, and is regarded as a site for multimodal sensory integration. Here the investigators aim to answer the question whether noninvasive brain stimulation when optimally targeted to the rSTS can improve brain activity, sensory integration, and hallucinations.

The goal of this observational study and clinical trial is to evaluate control of trunk posture and walking biomechanics in 20 older adults with chronic low back pain and 20 older adult healthy volunteers. A second objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of weekly biofeedback-based trunk control training to control of trunk posture and walking biomechanics. The main question it aims to answer is:

• Does training trunk control improve walking biomechanics in older adults? Researchers will compare older adults with and without chronic low back pain to see if trunk control, walking biomechanics, and the effects of training differ between the groups.

Participants will undergo measurements of trunk control in the laboratory, and of walking in both laboratory and outdoor settings. Trunk training will take place once a week for four weeks, and measurements will be repeated after the training protocol.

Sepsis damages the blood vessel lining and its protective "glycocalyx," contributing to organ failure and death. This pilot, randomized, blinded study will test whether giving fresh frozen plasma (FFP)-either as intermittent boluses or as a continuous infusion-protects or repairs the glycocalyx compared with look-alike placebo fluid (lactated Ringer's with multivitamins), and whether this leads to better clinical outcomes. We will measure blood and urine biomarkers of glycocalyx injury and track organ support needs, ICU/hospital-free days, and survival through 28-90 days.

This research is being done to determine if the combination of the Dendritic Cell (DC)/ Multiple Myeloma (MM) fusion vaccine with elranatamab is safe and effective in treating Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma (MM).

The names of the study drugs and vaccine involved in this study are:

DC/MM fusion vaccine (a personalized cancer vaccine in which harvested participant tumor cells are fused with harvested participant dendritic blood cells)

Granulocyte-Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor (GM-CSF) (a type of growth factor)

Elranatamab (a type of T-cell engager antibody)

The study investigates the efficacy and safety of dupilumab in the treatment of keloids

This research study is studying an immune-based cancer drug as a possible treatment for prostate cancer.

The drug involved in this study is:

-Nivolumab

The purpose of this project is to compare the performance and validity of novel wearable technologies that measure blood pressure (BP) and physical activity with a Spacelabs Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) device.

This study aims to evaluate nerve excitability in participants with cisplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (cis-PN) using threshold tracking nerve conduction studies (TTNCS). By assessing changes in nerve excitability parameters, the study seeks to enhance understanding of the pathophysiology of cis-PN and identify early markers of neurotoxicity in participants undergoing cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

Airway stents are used as standard of care to identify which patients with excessive dynamic airway collapse will benefit from a definitive surgical treatment. However, the specific way in which these stents are effective has not been tested. The purpose of this research study is to determine the effectiveness of airway stents when used in the airways of patients with severe symptomatic excessive dynamic airway collapse compared to patients with severe symptomatic excessive dynamic airway collapse that do not receive airway stent.

Single-arm pilot trial of the use of intrapleural saline irrigation to treat retained pleural infections for patients with contraindications to standard of care intrapleural enzymatic therapy.

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare spray cryotherapy plus balloon dilatation versus current standard of Care (SoC - steroid injection, radial cuts and balloon dilatation) in patients with benign airway stenosis with simple stenosis. The main question[s] investigators aim to answer are:

What is the need for reintervention and time to reintervention in participants with benign airway stenosis with simple stenosis who receive spray cryotherapy plus balloon dilatation versus standard of care alone?

To evaluate patient experience, physiological, anatomical changes, health care utilization and safety of the SCT plus balloon dilatation versus standard of care alone.

Researchers will compare spray cryotherapy plus balloon dilatation versus current standard of Care (SoC - steroid injection, radial cuts and balloon dilatation) in patients with benign airway stenosis with simple stenosis to see if it reduces the need of re intervention.

Participants will surgery and receive one of the two interventions.

This is a prospective cohort study of older patients receiving implantable cardioverter-defibrillators. The purpose of the TRACER-ICD study is to conduct a prospective cohort investigation with the goal of 500 patients age >65 receiving new primary prevention implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). Patients will be followed quarterly for 18 months with interviews, electronic record review, and remote monitoring to characterize clinical and functional trajectories following device implantation, with permission for extended electronic follow-up for up to 10 years (Aim 1). This cohort will support validation and refinement of an established model for predicting personalized outcome profiles for ICD therapies and death (Aim 2). Lastly, we will combine electronic record review with semi-structured interviews with patients and physicians to evaluate physician and patient experiences with a prototype individualized shared decision-making (SDM) tool (Aim 3).

The objective of this study is to investigate whether the addition of immersive virtual reality (VR) in the immediate postoperative period to an enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocol could improve postoperative recovery from bariatric surgery.

Fulvestrant has proven effective in the treatment of hormone receptor positive metastatic breast cancer. The dose used in studies so far has been well tolerated and may be too low for optimal effectiveness. In this study, a higher dose will be used to see whether an improved outcome will result.

This project proposes to conduct the first study of the predictive utility of olfactory hedonic measurement for targeted psychosocial rehabilitation in schizophrenia. The information gathered from the project is of considerable public health relevance, in that, through simple, reliable olfactory assessment, it will provide knowledge about which individuals are most likely to benefit from these psychosocial interventions. Such information is crucial for tailoring existing interventions and developing new approaches to optimize outcomes in schizophrenia.

Bloating is the most common symptom associated with disorders of brain-gut interaction (i.e., functional bowel disorders) such as irritable bowel syndrome, a disorder characterized by abdominal pain and altered bowel habits which affects up to 11% of world population. A common cause of bloating is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), a condition defined by excessive and/or abnormal type of bacteria in the small bowel. The potential role of SIBO for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) was initially proposed by Pimentel et al. Using lactulose breath tests (LBTs), 78% of patients with IBS were also diagnosed with SIBO. After antibiotic therapy, 48% of patients no longer met the Rome criteria for IBS. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that the prevalence of SIBO is increased in IBS.

The goal of this interventional study is to compare standard mechanical ventilation to a lung-stress oriented ventilation strategy in patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). Participants will be ventilated according to one of two different strategies. The main question the study hopes to answer is whether the personalized ventilation strategy helps improve survival.

The visual system has increasingly been recognized as an important site of injury in patients with schizophrenia and other psychoses. Visual system alterations manifest as visual perceptual aberrations, deficits in visual processing, and visual hallucinations. These visual symptoms are associated with worse symptoms, poorer outcome and resistance to treatment. A recent study using brain lesion mapping of visual hallucinations and identified a causal location in the part of the brain that processes visual information (visual cortex). The association between visual cortex activation and visual hallucinations suggests that this region could be targeted using noninvasive brain stimulation. Two case studies have found that brain stimulation to the visual cortex improved visual hallucinations in treatment resistant patients with psychosis. While promising it is unclear whether these symptom reductions resulted from activity changes in the visual cortex or not. Here we aim to answer the question whether noninvasive brain stimulation when optimally targeted to the visual cortex can improve brain activity, visual processing and visual hallucinations. The knowledge gained from this study will contribute to the field of vision by providing a marker for clinical response and by personalizing treatment for patients with psychosis suffering from visual symptoms. This grant will allow us to set the foundation for a larger more targeted study utilizing noninvasive brain stimulation to improve visual symptoms in patients with psychosis.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether speed-dependent measures of gait can be identified in patients with neurological conditions that affect gait, particularly in subjects with parkinsonian disorders.

The goal of the study is to gain a better understanding of the molecular changes responsible for causing prostate cancer and that examination of tissue and blood samples will help in the development of improved screening and therapeutic approaches.

A diagnostic tool that identifies biomarkers that predict response prior to and during induction of ozanimod will have a major impact on improving outcomes in UC patients. Using SOMAscan from SomaLogic (Boulder, CO), our study aims to discover serum protein biomarkers in UC patients that predict response to ozanimod and to gain insight into the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying ozanimod response.

The objective of this study is to investigate whether the use of virtual reality (VR) during total knee arthroplasty (TKA) can facilitate reductions in intraoperative sedative requirements while maintaining high levels of patient satisfaction as compared to both a music and sham VR + usual care control.

This study aims to identify the molecular genetic causes of the variability in development of calcific aortic valve disease in bicuspid and tricuspid aortic valves and their associated aortic dilation.

The overall goal of this study is to open up the promising treatment of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), which has been shown to be effective against seizures in patients with surface neocortical foci, to a much larger population of patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) and other forms of epilepsy with deep foci, who are not currently considered good rTMS candidates.

The investigators hypothesize that rTMS can modulate the hyperexcitable state in patients with deep seizure foci by targeting its usage to accessible cortical partner regions. In this study the investigators aim 1) to map the functional connectivity of the epileptogenic mesial temporal lobe in patients with medically refractory mesial temporal lobe epilepsy; and 2) to perform a randomized controlled assessment of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation protocols applied to specific neocortical targets in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. The methods used in this study will include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, electroencephalography (EEG), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

The goal of this fully-remote randomized controlled trial is to test the efficacy of Mindful Steps in facilitating physical activity compared to usual standard of care among 136 patients with COPD and/or HF. The main question it aims to answer is can this intervention promote physical activity as measured by daily step counts in sedentary patients with COPD and/or HF. Participants will be randomized (1:1 ratio) to receive either the Mindful Steps intervention or usual care for 12 months, with both arms receiving a Walking for Health education booklet.

The purpose of this protocol is to conduct a pilot prospective non-blind clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a novel saline irrigation technique as an adjunct to standard interventions for treating retained pleural infections. Intrapleural fibrinolytic therapy (IPFT) is commonly used for infections not adequately managed with antibiotics and intercostal tube drainage, while saline irrigation serves as an alternative for cases with a high bleeding risk where IPFT is not feasible. The efficacy of saline irrigation combined with IPFT remains unexplored. The hypothesis is that saline irrigation could be an effective and safe addition to IPFT for patients with persistent pleural infections.

The specific aims of the study include:

Determine the efficacy of saline irrigation as add-on therapy to IPFT: Compare the clinical outcomes of patients receiving saline irrigation combined with IPFT to those receiving IPFT alone to determine if the addition of saline irrigation offers significant benefits. Outcomes include changes in inflammatory markers, imaging characteristics (echography and CT), volume of pleural fluid drained, chest tube duration, hospital length of stay, and the need for subsequent surgical intervention.

Assess the safety and tolerability of saline irrigation plus IPFT: Compare complications and patient comfort in those receiving saline irrigation combined with IPFT to those receiving IPFT alone.

The purpose of this study is to test a double screening strategy for pancreatic cancer, based on a model developed using patient medical records. Investigators would also like to test whether adding specific blood tests, can further help identify people who have a higher risk of pancreatic cancer than the general population, and would benefit from imaging in order to detect cancer early.

The goal of this prospective observational cohort study is to validate previously developed Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) risk prediction algorithms, the Liver Risk Computation (LIRIC) models, which are based on electronic health records.

The main questions it aims to answer are:

Will our retrospectively developed general population LIRIC models, developed on routine EHR data, perform similarly when prospectively validated, and reliably and accurately predict HCC in real-time?

What is the average time from model deployment and risk prediction, to the date of HCC development and what is the stage of HCC at diagnosis?

The risk model will be deployed on data from individuals eligible for the study. Each individual will be assigned a risk score and tracked over time to assess the model's discriminatory performance and calibration.

The primary aim of this study is to translate temporal interference (TI) stimulation methodology into humans and examine its safety, feasibility, steerability, and focality. In the proposed early phase human experiment, the ability to apply TI stimulation will be assessed along spatial dimensions to selectively modulate neural activity and assess the feasibility of selective targeting deep brain structures without exciting overlaying cortex. The overall goal of the study is to advance TI methodology and its translation to humans.

The specific aims in this study are to

Assess the safety of TI stimulation.

Assess the feasibility, focality, and steerability of TI stimulation by selectively modulating activity in subregions of a cortical area (calcarine cortex)

It is hypothesized that TI stimulation can be used to impact different regions of the visual field that are represented within the calcarine fissure of the human brain.

It is hypothesized that TI will be well tolerated by human subjects and side effects will be consistent with other forms of transcranial electric current stimulation (tES).

The pathophysiology of Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is multifactorial involving complex interplay of altered intestinal permeability, mucosal immune activation, visceral hypersensitivity and gut dysbiosis. Although the exact triggers for these pathological changes in IBS are not clear but diet might play an important role. In fact, several studies have reported improvement in gastrointestinal symptoms on a diet low in FODMAPs (LFD) in patients with IBS, specifically in diarrhea predominant IBS (IBS-D). However, the mechanism of action of LFD is not well understood.

This study will evaluate the influence of sleep apnea on clinical and radiological features of MS. Sleep apnea is associated with hypoxemia during sleep, which is likely detrimental to MS. Clinical data (MRI, lab results, medical history, labs, and sleep studies) of MS patients will be collected and analyzed. This will be done to study correlations between MRI, clinical data, lab studies and sleep studies. There is specific interest in the type of sleep apnea associated with MS, and whether MRI or clinical metrics of MS severity correlate with presence or absence of sleep apnea.

It has been estimated that 1.7 billion people have tuberculosis (TB) infection; yet current tests are unable to predict which people are at highest risk of developing TB disease, which can be life-threatening. THWART-TB is a prospective longitudinal cohort study of health workers (HWs) in Cape Town, South Africa, where our preliminary data reveals HWs have a high annual TB infection risk (34%). This cohort, who will undergo frequent serial evaluation (every 3 months) with a combination of novel assays never previously evaluated together, presents a unique opportunity to evaluate immune responses at the time of initial infection and to characterize the dynamic profile of these immune responses over time in a high-risk population. The knowledge generated will improve our understanding of TB infection and help to identify which people exposed to TB may remain at risk, enabling us to better target preventive strategies.

To determine the effect of a whole soy food, dietary soy nuts, on blood pressure, lipid levels, inflammation and menopausal symptoms in postmenopausal women.

The purpose of this study is to determine the feasibility of a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) system to have a meaningful clinical conversation with a patient prior to an urgent care visit with their primary care physician. In this study, patients who are seeking an urgent care visit (that is, any type of medical visit with their primary care provider for a new complaint) will first have a conversation with an AI system. This interaction with the AI system will happen less than a week before their visit with their physician, and will be supervised by an independent physician who will interrupt in case there are any concerns about patient safety. After the interaction, a summary of the conversation will be sent to the patient's PCP, who will review prior to the in-person visit.

The researchers will investigate:

Patient views on the AI system

PCP views on the AI system

Overall safety, as measured by the physician safety supervisor

Quality of clinical conversations, measured by standardized rubrics

Quality of diagnostic and management plans generated by the AI; these will not be shared with the patient or physician, but will be generated after the fact and compared with the actual diagnosis and management plan.

The goal of this research study is to asses the safety and efficacy of the combination of AGEN1423 and Botensilimab with or without chemotherapies, gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel, for the treatment of advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) which has progressed after at least one previous line of cancer therapy.

The names of the study drugs involved in this study are:

AGEN1423

Botensilimab

Participants will receive study treatment for about 2 years and will be followed for 1 year after.

The study is a randomized, proof of concept study. 30 patients aged 18 and over with HS will be included in this single center, randomized, double-blind, parallel-group study. Dosage of deucravacitinib will be given according to the investigational regimen as follows: 6 mg po bid for 16 weeks. The study compromises a 4-week screening period, a 16-week study period, and a 4-week follow-up period. The follow-up period consists of a follow-up phone call 4 weeks after the last study drug dose.