Clinical trials

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of a probiotic formulation on participants with ALS-FTDSD. It is hypothesized that participants given the probiotics will have different lipid profiles compared to participants receiving the placebo at different time points.

Scar management remains one of the major clinical challenges for burn survivors with hypertrophic scars. Beyond their visible appearance, hypertrophic scars can significantly impair physical function, reduce life satisfaction, and affect overall quality of life. According to the results of a recently completed study, the application of serial casts appears promising for the treatment of hypertrophic scars in adults who have survived a burn injury. However, this therapeutic approach has not yet been evaluated objectively in terms of scar characteristics within the context of a study with sufficient statistical power. The present project is the first study with sufficient statistical power to objectively evaluate the beneficial effects of serial casting on the characteristics of hypertrophic scars in adult burn survivors. The objective of this study is to characterize changes in thickness, elasticity, vascularization, transepidermal water loss (TEWL), itching, and pain in hypertrophic burn scars in adults after one week of treatment with serial dressings, compared to an intra-individual control scar. Our hypothesis is that relative to baseline measures the scar thickness (primary outcome), erythema index, TEWL, itch, and pain will decrease at treatment sites compared to control sites. Conversely, elasticity will increase at the treatment sites compared to control sites. This will be a prospective, longitudinal, evaluator-blinded, randomized intra-individual controlled trial.

This study aims to evaluate a mobile app designed to promote the safe use of cannabis among adult users in Quebec.

The SAVED LUNG study is a pilot Phase I trial evaluating safety and feasibility of observation versus standard-of-care surgery in operable Stage II-III (excluding N3) NSCLC patients (PD-L1 ≥50%) who achieve complete clinical response following neoadjuvant platinum-doublet chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Participants are randomized to observation or surgery after rigorous restaging, with primary endpoints focusing on safety and feasibility. Secondary objectives include rates of cross-over to surgery, event-free survival, and overall survival, while exploratory endpoints examine ctDNA clearance and its association with clinical response.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the corneal collagen crosslinking with riboflavin and ultraviolet A in aim to increase the resistance of the graft used as a support for the Boston keratoprosthesis (KPro) type I against corneal melting (keratolysis or sterile necrosis).

Penetrating keratoplasty is a cornea surgery involving several inflammatory complications, of which the most important is glaucoma. Researchers wish to determine whether it is safe to administer infliximab (an anti-inflammatory drug) eye drops after surgery, and whether this eye drop could prevent the occurrence of glaucoma.

The Boston keratoprosthesis (KPro) is a special plastic device that is used to replace a sick cornea (transparent part of the eye, in front of the iris) in order to restore vision in patients who have failed traditional corneal transplants or have a very poor prognosis of success. Glaucoma is a chronic disease which causes optic nerve damage secondary to high pressure inside the eye and could lead to vision loss in the long term. Glaucoma is highly prevalent in patients who require a KPro and even more after their procedure. In order to decrease the intra-ocular pressure, surgeons can use multiple eyedrops. Unfortunately, following the KPro surgery, eyedrops lose their efficiency because they are less absorbed by the eye. The transscleral cyclophotocoagulation (TS-CPC) is a laser treatment used in advanced refractory glaucoma. This laser helps decrease the intra-ocular pressure and have a better control of the disease. There are different methods of laser transmission, including the continuous transmission (G-Probe) and the micro-pulsation method (Micopulse). Given the high prevalence of glaucoma in patients receiving a KPro, the investigators are studying the effect of giving the TS-CPC treatment prophylactically to patients before their Boston keratoprosthesis. Our hypothesis is that prophylactic TS-CPC will decrease glaucoma progression as well as the risks of developing glaucoma following the Boston keratoprosthesis . METHOD The investigators aim to recruit twenty (20) patients who are scheduled to receive Boston KPro. Participants will be randomized into two groups: 1) Groupe 1 will receive a prophylactic treatment of transscleral cyclophotocoagulation a G-Probe. 2) Groupe 2 will receive a prophylactic treatment of transscleral cyclophotocoagulation with a micropulse transmission (MicroPulse). The patients will receive their laser treatment by a glaucoma specialist 4 to 8 weeks before their KPro surgery. One week following their laser treatment, the participants will be examined by their glaucoma specialist. Following their KPro surgery, patients will have a follow-up at day-1, weeks 1 and 2, months 1 and 3, then every 4 to 6 months for 5 years. Additional non-invasive glaucoma tests will be performed twice during the first 3 months following the surgery and will be repeated every 4-6 months. Visual acuity results, the visual field tests and rates of post-operative complications will be compared between the different groups.

This study aims to obtain the lacrimal fingerprint for frequent pathologies of the ocular surface and establish a normative base for each of them.

Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) allows EUS-guided trans gastric injection of absolute alcohol around the base of the celiac plexus (celiac plexus neurolysis (EUS-CPN)), to help alleviate pain associated with pancreatic cancer. It is standard procedure to inject bupivacaine immediately before injecting absolute alcohol, to theoretically prevent pain that may occur during and after the procedure. However, there are no data showing whether bupivacaine injection has any real influence on intra-procedural, immediate post-procedural, or long-term pain control. The injection of bupivacaine before the alcohol may have no effect, a synergistic effect, or an antagonistic effect, by diluting the alcohol, and reducing its neurolytic capacity. Inadvertent intravascular injection of bupivacaine may also cause irreversible cardiac arrhythmias and death. The investigators therefore propose a randomized clinical trial to determine whether the exclusion of bupivacaine during EUS-guided CPN improves outcomes, or not.

The goal of this clinical trial is to determine whether rescue distal mechanical thrombectomy can improve outcomes in patients with persistent distal occlusions after successful proximal mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischemic stroke. Many patients with acute ischemic stroke caused by large vessel occlusion undergo emergency treatment with proximal mechanical thrombectomy, which removes the main clot and restores flow in a large artery. However, in some patients, one or more smaller distal arteries remain occluded after successful proximal recanalization. It is not yet known whether treating these persistent distal occlusions improves angiographic or clinical outcomes. This study will compare two approaches: Rescue distal mechanical thrombectomy: an additional distal mechanical thrombectomy procedure is performed during the same endovascular session. Conservative management: no additional distal endovascular intervention is performed after successful proximal mechanical thrombectomy. The main questions the study aims to answer are: * Is rescue distal mechanical thrombectomy feasible in this setting? * Is it safe? * Does it improve angiographic and clinical outcomes? Participants will be randomly assigned during the index endovascular procedure to one of the two study groups and will be followed with imaging and clinical assessments during hospitalization and at 90 days. Approximately 72 participants will take part in this study at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM).

Currently available fiducial marker and fiducial insertion strategies are rudimentary, imprecise, not compatible with multiple insertion catheters/needles and are overall unreliable. STING-MARK device is the first universal, fully detachable and non-premounted radiopaque fiducial device system. Allowing biopsy prior to insertion, STING-MARK is easily and reliably delivered through-the-needle to the tumor, in order to accurately pinpoint its location for image-guided therapies. This study aims at establishing proof of concept for STING-MARK, by demonstrating its usability, reproducibility, radio-opacity and retention in a variety of clinically-relevant ex vivo organ samples.

The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of KAN-004 in patients with immune-related colitis.

This phase II, registry-based cohort-multiple randomized controlled trial (cmRCT) evaluates whether daily online adaptive radiotherapy (ART) enables the safe delivery of hypofractionated, iso-biologically equivalent (EQD2) external beam radiotherapy compared with standard-of-care (SOC) fractionation. Conventional radiotherapy requires generous planning target volume (PTV) margins to account for inter-fraction anatomical variation, which increases radiation exposure to surrounding organs at risk (OARs) and may contribute to toxicity. Modern ART platforms using daily on-table imaging (kV-CBCT or MRI guidance) allow real-time contour adaptation and online plan re-optimization based on same-day anatomy. This approach enables margin reduction while maintaining target coverage and may permit safe hypofractionation. Eligible patients enrolled in an institutional prospective registry will be randomized (1:1) to receive either SOC radiotherapy or hypofractionated ART across multiple pelvic disease strata (post-prostatectomy prostate cancer, intact prostate cancer, endometrial cancer, cervical cancer, and rectal cancer). The primary objective is to demonstrate non-inferiority of hypofractionated ART compared with SOC in terms of cumulative incidence of Grade ≥2 toxicity (CTCAE v5). Secondary outcomes include acute and late toxicity, oncologic outcomes (progression-free survival, locoregional failure, distant metastases, overall survival), patient-reported outcomes, treatment efficiency, and dosimetric parameters. A Bayesian monitoring framework with pre-specified safety and futility stopping rules will be used to ensure patient safety and clinical equipoise throughout the trial.

Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted radioligand therapy with Lutetium-177 (¹⁷⁷Lu-PSMA) is an established treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. Administered intravenously, it enables targeted irradiation of PSMA-expressing tumor cells. However, 30-50% of patients derive limited benefit. This variability could be partly explained by heterogeneity in delivered dose across lesions, leading to under-treatment of certain metastases. The addition of targeted external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) may compensate for this underdosing by delivering a precise dose to insufficiently irradiated lesions. We hypothesize that the addition of adaptive EBRT to ¹⁷⁷Lu-PSMA will reduce the incidence of skeletal-related events (pathologic fracture, spinal cord compression, surgery, or palliative radiotherapy) without increasing toxicity. Adaptive EBRT and RLT for mCRPC (ARREST) is a pragmatic registry-based phase 2, multi-center randomized controlled trial within the PERa prospective cohort (NCT03378856) planned to activate in 2026. Patients who are receiving SOC 177Lu-PSMA with targetable metastatic burden identified on imaging suitable for EBRT will be eligible. One hundred and twenty eligible patients will be randomized 1:1 to receive either SOC 177Lu-PSMA therapy alone (maximum 6 cycles) or to combined 177Lu-PSMA plus adaptive EBRT. Patients in the experimental arm will undergo FDG-PET at study entry and SPECT-CT after each cycle of radioligand therapy. Lesions selected for EBRT boost will be selected based on a set of criteria that include estimated suboptimal dose absorbed from 177LuPSMA, lesions demonstrating low PSMA but high FDG update, symptomatic lesions, and those at high risk for skeletal-related events. Selected lesions will receive single-fraction EBRT. Dose prescribed will range from 6-12 Gy with the ideal goal of a combined total biological effective dose of ≥50 Gy (α/β = 5) with priority to dose limits for organs at risk. A maximum treatment time of 60 minutes is permitted for each adaptive EBRT treatment. Patients in the experimental arm that achieve complete response measured by 177Lu-SPECT-CT and PSA will pause ARREST and resume at progression. The primary endpoint is skeletal related events at 1 year. Secondary objectives include overall survival, 177Lu-SPECT-CT and PSA response, toxicity, and quality of life. The sample size is designed to detect a 12 month improvement in the rate of skeletal related events with a HR 0.61, one-sided alpha of 0.1 and 80% power. ARREST is hypothesized to safely optimize tumor dose, offering a personalized hybrid approach that may lead to improved patient outcomes. In addition, this study will permit further understanding of these two distinct radiation delivery methods and their effect on tissues, thereby refining the relative biological effectiveness model for more precise treatment planning.

This will be a pragmatic, phase II, registry-based cohort-multiple randomized controlled trial (cmRCT) embedded within an ongoing prospective cancer radiotherapy registry. Eligible patients are those with hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer who have responded to systemic therapy, defined by the absence of PSA progression, and who are eligible for MDRT. All eligible subjects will be enrolled into the registry and followed longitudinally for oncologic and toxicity outcomes. From this registry, patients will be randomly selected (1:1) to be offered the experimental arm, which consists of MDRT delivered to metastatic sites identified on imaging in patients who have already initiated systemic therapy (Figure 1). Those not selected will continue to receive standard of care systemic therapy +/- standard of care radiotherapy if clinically indicated. Nor patients or physicians will be blinded. Following the initial course of MDRT, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) will be measured, with a minimum assessment at 3 months. This PSA value will be used to determine whether the PSA level has decreased below 0.2 ng/mL. If the PSA remains ≥ 0.2 ng/mL, repeat PSMA-PET will be performed, and a second course of MDRT will be delivered to consolidate residual metastatic lesions. In this phase II real-world randomized trial, we will determine if AnChoRing (Addition of MDRT for consolidation of response) sites of PSMA PET visible disease when responding to systemic therapy improves the proportion of patients achieving a PSA \< 0.2 ng/mL and extends failure-free survival compared to the standard of care.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of therapeutic dose intravenous heparin at improving replantation/revascularization success and its indications (if any) in participants who have suffered traumatic digital amputation. Digital replantation/revascularization success will be assessed in participants who receive continuous intravenous drip of thromboprophylactic heparin at a therapeutic dose (i.e. modifies INR to the desired range) contrasted to those who do not receive therapeutic dose heparin (i.e. does not modify INR to the desired range). In the study, replantation/revascularization success is defined as a clearly viable digit at the time of discharge. Secondary objectives include assessing postoperative complications associated with heparin use, such as bleeding, hematoma or heparin induced thrombocytopenia. The investigators would also assess the impact of categorical variables such as smoking status, mechanism of injury and comorbidities, on digital survival.

Trigger finger is a pathology of the flexor tendons caused by inflammation of the tendon or its sheath, leading to pain, nodules, fibrosis, and limited mobility. Surgical treatment aims to release the space at the level of the A1 pulley, either through longitudinal opening (the standard technique, but associated with recurrence rates of approximately 7.7%) or through complete resection, an emerging approach that may reduce recurrences and the need for reoperations. However, comparative data remain limited, justifying further investigation. This project therefore aims to compare these two surgical techniques to determine which one results in the lowest recurrence rate and to assess their functional outcomes (pain, range of motion). The primary hypothesis is that A1 pulley resection reduces recurrences after one year, while the secondary hypothesis is that there is no significant difference in postoperative pain or mobility.

Worldwide, liver cancers are the third most common cause of cancer mortality. Even when liver cancer is suspected by blood tests, imaging is required to determine the location, size, and extent of disease. Medical societies therefore recommend surveillance with ultrasound every 6 months in at-risk patients. However, a key challenge to improving the survival is that ultrasound may miss half of early-stage liver cancers, thus diagnosis must rely on additional tests such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or biopsy. Hence, there is a clear need to improve the ability to detect liver cancers, especially with ultrasound. The investigator's team proposes novel ultrasound approaches to detect cancer nodules invisible on conventional ultrasound based on differences in mechanical and structural properties between liver and tumor. Improving detection is critical because liver cancer can be cured only if detected at an early stage, as shown by improvements in survival rates in patients enrolled in surveillance programs. The investigator's multi-disciplinary, national, and international team includes experts in clinical fields (hepatology, oncology, radiology, pathology), basic sciences (engineering, medical physics, machine learning, biostatistics), and patient partnership. The investirgator will apply the methodology of patient partner recruitment and collaborate with the Centre of Excellence on Partnership with Patients and the Public to select potential new collaborators. This will permit this project to be informed at every stage by patient and family perspectives, ensuring that the results of this project will be more robust, impactful, and aligned with the priorities, needs and experiences of those who live with liver cancer. The investigator submits a research proposal focused on advanced imaging techniques because imaging constitutes a foundation for surveillance, diagnosis, staging, treatment selection and assessment of treatment response in patients with liver cancer.

Cardiac complications, particularly myocardial injury after noncardiac surgery (MINS), significantly contribute to 30-day mortality, affecting about 1 in 10 patients after noncardiac surgery. Despite its prevalence and serious implications, there is no consensus on managing myocardial injury after noncardiac surgery in clinical practice. Interventions commonly used for cardiovascular prevention in patients who had a heart attack outside of a surgery context could also be beneficial in patient with MINS. This pilot study trial aims to gather feasibility data, such as recruitment rates and intervention adherence that will guide on the design and inform on sample size of a future study with large pragmatic randomized controlled trial on the impact of systematic referral for secondary cardiovascular prevention on outcomes in patients who had a MINS.

Developing a standardized methodology for the use of novel cryogenic catheters for transbronchial cryobiopsy and cryoablation of pulmonary lesions.

Air leaks represent one of the most common complications and postoperative morbidity in thoracic surgery. Air leaks have been associated with the largest preventable morbidity associated with increased costs following lobectomy (typically related to increased length of stay). However, the standard used to detect and localize the air leaks, the submersion test, is not suitable for the standard surgical procedure, Video Assisted Thoracic Surgery. Considering the prevalence of this complication and the absence of a surgical standard of care for such complications, the aim of this study is to develop a system to create and send a glycerine aerosol smoke in the lungs of the patient. The smoke is visible with standard laparoscope and will flow though the pulmonary leak, thereby reducing postoperative surgical complications, morbidity, and length of stay for patients undergoing pulmonary resection.

Developing a methodology to detect, quantify and treat air leaks intraoperatively using a bio-adhesive, to thereby reduce postoperative surgical complications, morbidity, and length of stay for patients undergoing pulmonary resection.

Choline is an important building block of phospholipids in cell membranes. Certain cancers and medical conditions are known to demonstrate increased absorption and incorporation of choline into their cell membranes. 18-F-fluorocholine (F-choline) and 11-C-choline (C-choline) are diagnostic positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers that can be used to image, in vivo, the metabolism of choline. Both tracers have been extensively studied in prostate cancer and C-choline has obtained US FDA approval for the investigation of recurrent prostate cancer. F-choline is currently not approved for clinical use by the FDA or Health Canada, but it offers many advantages over C-choline due to its better physical characteristics (mainly due to its positron range, shorter and longer half-life). In recent years, reports have started to emerge on broader potential applications of choline PET imaging, particularly for imaging parathyroid adenomas, certain cervical cancers and certain liver cancers. The main objective is to discover and explore potential new and emerging indications in which F-choline could play a role and provide clinically relevant information. Secondary objectives are 1) To assess the safety of F-choline PET imaging using F-choline produced at the CRCHUM; 2) assess changes in patient/disease management following F-choline PET imaging. Researchers hypothesize that F-choline will provide useful and incremental clinical information in a variety of conditions, and outperform the "standard" workup in numerous conditions. F-Choline PET exams will be performed on hybrid PET/CT scanners according to standard procedures. These examinations could be repeated at the discretion of the treating physician (up to a maximum of 4 exams per year) if the treating physician and the research team deem this could provide additional clinically useful information (for example, by helping to assess response to newly started therapy). The results will be provided to the attending physician and any new knowledge could lead to a change in treatment or an investigation of the condition that prompted enrollment in the study.

The proportion of noncardiac surgeries performed as same-day surgery is increasing worldwide, with more complex surgeries being performed on higher risk patients in the outpatient setting. Little is known on the risk factors, incidence and prognosis of patients undergoing same-day noncardiac surgery. The main objective of this study is to inform on the incidence and risk factors of cardiovascular and other adverse events after same-day surgery and to develop risk prediction tools to better inform on the risk and selection of patients undergoing same-day surgery.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-skin malignancy and the third leading cause of cancer death in North American men. The accurately mapped metastatic state is a necessary prerequisite to guiding treatment in practice and in clinical trials. Imaging biomarkers (BMs) can provide information on disease volume and distribution, prognosis, changes in biologic behavior, therapy-induced changes (both responders and non-responders), durations of response, emergence of treatment resistance, and the host reaction to the therapies. Of particular relevance to metastatic prostate cancer is the emergence of a promising imaging technique involving new prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positron emission tomography (PET) tracers. This approach has demonstrated higher sensitivity in detecting metastases, prior to and during therapy, than current imaging standard of care (CT and bone scan), and is not widely clinically available outside of the research realm in North America. Positron emission tomography / computer tomography (PET/CT) is a nuclear medicine diagnostic imaging procedure based on the measurement of positron emission from radiolabeled tracer molecules in vivo. PSMA is a homodimeric type II membrane metalloenzyme that functions as a glutamate carboxypeptidase/folate hydrolase and is overexpressed in PCa. PSMA is expressed in the vast majority of PCa tissue specimens and its degree of expression correlates with a number of important metrics of PCa tumor aggressiveness including Gleason score, propensity to metastasize and the development of castration resistance. \[18F\]DCFPyL is a promising high-sensitivity second generation PSMA-targeted urea-based PET probe. Studies employing second-generation PSMA PET/CT imaging in men with biochemical progression after definitive therapy suggest detection of metastases in over 60% of men imaged. Deep learning is defined as a variant of artificial neural networks, using multiple layers of 'neurons'. Deep learning has been investigated in medical imaging in numerous applications across organ systems. In oncology, basic artificial neural networks to support decision-making have previously been developed retrospectively in breast cancer and prostate cancer, but have not been validated or integrated prospectively. Novel data-driven methods are needed to predict outcomes as early as possible in order to guide the duration and the aggressiveness of a particular therapy. They are also needed for optimal patient selection based on the patient's response to a given therapy. Here the investigators hypothesize that the combination of a highly performing prostate cancer imaging technique combined with machine learning has high potential. The main objective of this study is to acquire PSMA-PET data in patients with prostate cancer who receive treatment and follow-up in order to enable the discovery of predictive imaging biomarkers through deep learning techniques.