Clinical trials

Persistent pain is a public health epidemic. The current protocol seeks to develop technology to aid patients' tracking of patients' pain, medications and pain-related variables. The investigators seek to talk with patients in co-investigator's clinic to solicit feedback, as well as pilot test the technology with pain patients.

This study is a prospective two-arm, single blind randomized controlled trial design to compare the clinical effectiveness of telemedicine-delivered, 6-session, standardized cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and mindfulness-based treatment for insomnia (MBTI) in treating insomnia symptoms and ameliorating depressive symptoms in persons with mild to moderate TBI and comorbid Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSS) and insomnia symptoms in a 360 patients. Participants will undergo assessment (psychosocial questionnaires, neurocognitive testing, sleep monitoring) at baseline, at the end of treatment, and at 2-, 6- and 12-weeks post-treatment. The primary outcome is sleep as measured by the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI).

Pneumonia is the leading infectious cause of death in children under five years of age worldwide, and most of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. In these settings, frontline health workers diagnose pneumonia using the World Health Organization's Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) guidelines, which rely mainly on counting how fast a child is breathing and checking for chest indrawing. This approach has saved many lives, but it is not very specific. As a result, many children who actually have self-limiting viral illnesses that do not require antibiotics are nonetheless treated with antibiotics, contributing to the global rise of antimicrobial resistance. New digital stethoscopes paired with artificial intelligence (AI) can record a child's lung sounds and automatically detect abnormal sounds such as crackles and wheezes with accuracy comparable to physicians. The LaLeLa Lung Study will evaluate whether adding an AI-enabled digital stethoscope to standard IMCI assessment improves the accuracy of pneumonia diagnosis among children aged 2 to 59 months who present with cough and/or difficult breathing at a primary care clinic in Cape Town, South Africa. The main component (Objective 1) is a randomized, triple-blinded diagnostic accuracy study that will enroll 350 children, randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to either IMCI care enhanced by the AI-enabled digital stethoscope or standard IMCI care. An independent panel of physicians, blinded to the AI results and to study-arm assignment, will review each case and serve as the reference standard for determining whether pneumonia was truly present. The investigators hypothesize that IMCI enhanced by the AI stethoscope will diagnose pneumonia more accurately, and target antibiotics more appropriately, than standard IMCI alone. Nested sub-studies will additionally evaluate a second AI stethoscope for tuberculosis detection, a wearable lung-sound and respiratory-rate patch, an automated respiratory-rate monitor, and a smartphone-connected pulse oximeter. A separate component (Objective 2) is a mixed-methods implementation study at a second clinic that will assess how easily health workers can use these devices, how acceptable the devices are to health workers and caregivers, and how well the devices fit into routine clinic workflows. Throughout the study, all AI-generated results will remain concealed from clinic staff, study clinicians, and caregivers, so the AI-generated results will not influence the care any child receives. All children continue to receive standard IMCI care. Findings will help inform whether AI-enabled digital auscultation should be integrated into childhood pneumonia care in South Africa and similar low-resource settings, with the goal of improving diagnosis, strengthening antibiotic stewardship, and reducing antimicrobial resistance and child mortality.

Persons who do not have glaucoma will have pictures taken of the optic nerve with a standard camera before and 2 weeks after starting to take a daily glaucoma eye drop to lower eye pressure. These data will be used to compare to the same procedure performed with glaucoma patients to study how glaucoma injures the eye.

This research study is being done to find out whether a community health volunteer-delivered, multi-component program can improve lung health for people at risk of chronic respiratory diseases (such as asthma or COPD) in Bhaktapur, Nepal. The program focuses on reducing tobacco smoke exposure, reducing indoor and outdoor air pollution exposure, preventing respiratory infections (including vaccination and mask use during viral seasons), and encouraging safe physical activity. The "index participant" is the main enrolled participant in the household who is randomized to the intervention or control arm. The participant will be in the study for about 40 months and will have 11 research visits: one at baseline and then every 4 months through month 40. At visits, staff will do breathing tests (spirometry before and after an inhaled medicine), measure exhaled carbon monoxide, check blood pressure, measure height/weight at selected visits, and ask questions about symptoms, smoking, infections, vaccines, and quality of life. The participant will also wear an activity monitor (accelerometer) for 2 weeks at baseline and at follow-up visits. If individual is a household member (not the index participant), the participant may be asked to complete baseline and follow-up assessments every 4 months through month 40, will receive the influenza vaccine and will primarily be asked to use masks and handwashing during household respiratory illness episodes (only if the index participant is randomized to the intervention) and will not be asked to wear an activity monitor. If the participant is in the pilot phase, participation will last about 2 months. the participant will complete baseline procedures and pilot follow-up visits during those 2 months instead of the full 40-month schedule.

The investigators are proposing a new team-based shared decision-making (SDM) program. The goal of this study is to see whether this program is practical and whether it may help adults with cardiometabolic risk factors and cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome. The investigators will enroll adults from a primary care clinic in Maryland. People in the intervention group will take part in the 6-month program in addition to usual care. People in the control group will receive usual care only.

CORT-X will examine if mitigation of stress-mediated pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a feasible target for intervention in individuals at risk for this disease. This single-site (Baltimore, Maryland) phase II clinical trial is a 2-week, randomized, placebo-controlled crossover study of the effects of the selective glucocorticoid receptor antagonist, CORT108297, on cognitive test performance in 26 individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to AD and in 26 cognitively normal individuals with an increased risk for AD due to family history, genetics, and/or subjective memory complaints. All subjects will participate in a brief stressor (public speaking and mental arithmetic) and provide saliva samples so investigators can measure stress hormone response. Then, following 2 weeks of treatment with placebo or CORT108297, in counterbalanced order, participants will complete cognitive tests assessing memory and executive function. All study participants will receive CORT108297 and placebo over the course of this 10-week trial that requires 6 in-person study visits. The primary aims will compare the effects of CORT108297 to placebo on cognitive test performance in individuals with MCI due to AD and in individuals at risk for AD, and describe the side effects of CORT108297 in study participants. Secondary aims will identify subject characteristics that predict positive response to study drug.

This human laboratory study will collect preliminary safety and efficacy data from a sample of participants enrolled in a 4-week in-patient treatment program for alcohol use disorder.

This is a research study to better understand how long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA) works to prevent HIV in people. This study will also evaluate the impact of endogenous and therapeutic hormones on CAB-LA pharmacology. The investigators will also evaluate if participants experience any medical problems when taking CAB-LA.

The investigators previously demonstrated that voice changes are common in patients with Laryngotracheal Stenosis (LTS), and patients typically report an improvement in voice outcomes following endoscopic dilation. Recently, NIH based programs such as a Bridge to Artificial Intelligence (Bridge2AI) have highlighted the use of artificial intelligence to identify acoustic biomarkers of disease. Therefore, the investigators hypothesize that progression of LTS scar can be quantified using acoustic measurements and machine learning. The goal of this clinical trial is to remotely monitor patient voice quality in an effort to determine if regularly performed voice recordings can be used as a diagnostic tool in order to predict the need for dilation procedures. The investigators feel that successful use of remote voice recording technology with algorithmic analysis will improve patient quality of life.

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if knowing risk for diabetes can help adult patients with prediabetes take steps to get care and prevent diabetes. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does a shared-decision making visit with a health care team member to talk about the participant's diabetes risk increase participants' taking steps to prevent diabetes? * Does a simple message in the patient portal about the participant's diabetes risk increase participants' taking steps to prevent diabetes? Researchers will compare the visit with usual care at the clinic to see if the visit increases participants' taking steps to prevent diabetes. Separately, the researchers will compare the patient message with usual care at the clinic to see if the message increases participants' taking steps to prevent diabetes. Participants will: * Complete surveys at the beginning of the study and up to 2 additional surveys * If the participant falls into the shared decision-making group, the participant will have one 30-minute visit with a healthcare team member to talk about risk of diabetes and how to lower it.

Despite a strong evidence-base for the efficacy of multilevel programs in reducing asthma symptoms among low-income preschool minority children, gaps remain in our understanding of how to best translate and scale up these efficacious interventions into sustainable programs that reduce known asthma health disparities. Head Start (HS) serves over one million low income children in the US each year by focusing on early learning, physical health, and family engagement. HS is committed to implementing evidence based programs to promote overall child well-being, and is focused on addressing asthma symptoms due to the deleterious impact on school absences and child development. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of a multi-level staff and family education program (ABC Asthma) that significantly reduced asthma symptoms and courses of oral corticosteroids. However, these interventions are not successfully integrated within community organizations for long-term sustainability. It is unknown how to best scale up and implement these evidence based asthma interventions into low resource community organizations that serve children at risk. Implementation strategies are frequently developed atheoretically and may not be tailored to the setting. The overall purpose of this project is to inform best practices of implementation of an asthma education program by 1) systematically evaluating the use of intervention mapping to develop a tailored implementation strategy in partnership with Head Start stakeholders, 2) examining both staff and organizational level determinants associated with implementation of ABC Asthma, and 3) evaluating the success of tailored implementation strategies on implementation outcomes and school absences and other health outcomes. The YMCA of Central Maryland have enthusiastically agreed to implement the Maryland ABC HS Asthma within 40 sites in four communities: Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, and Prince George's County.

This study will evaluate the impact of implementing an educational clinical decision support (CDS) tool designed to guide perioperative cardiovascular evaluation for adults undergoing urgent inpatient surgery. The CDS tool, integrated within the Epic electronic health record via AgileMD, provides evidence-informed recommendations regarding perioperative cardiac testing and specialty consultation based on American Heart Association guidance and multidisciplinary institutional consensus. The investigators will conduct a retrospective and prospective pre-post observational cohort study comparing perioperative cardiovascular testing intensity, consultation patterns, time to operating room, and clinical outcomes before and after implementation of the tool among adult patients admitted through the emergency department at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center who undergo urgent surgery. Data will be obtained from the Core for Clinical Research Data Acquisition (CCDA) and Epic electronic health record, with case-level chart review performed as needed to validate rare outcomes such as major adverse cardiac events.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of atorvastatin on brain vessel reactivity and with it on blood flow in people with mild cognitive impairment.

This study aims to assess the effectiveness of a Community Health Worker (CHW) delivered hearing loss intervention program (HEARS) for older adults in Maryland in collaboration with community organizations.

The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate if the study drug will reduce brain and retinal atrophy by reducing inflammation and subsequently slowing neurodegeneration in people with Multiple Sclerosis. The main outcome for the trial is change in normalized brain parenchymal volume (nBPV), measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Researchers will compare outcomes from participants randomized to the study drug, versus participants randomized to placebo, to see if there are signs of slowed neurodegeneration (i.e., reduction in brain and retinal atrophy).

The purpose of this study is to provide evaluate the feasibility of a structured 8-10-week, multi-component intervention that integrates individualized resource navigation, personalized self-care planning, emergency and end of life (EOL) preparedness, and peer support to improve the well-being, resource access and social connectedness of caregivers with disabilities. For this study we are interested in caregivers over the age of 18 who have some form (e.g. mobility or sensory) disability and are caring for a person with a disability and/or a chronic illness.

The purpose of this mixed methods study is to adapt CAPABLE as CAPABLE Transplant to accomplish two things: 1) To resolve barriers to being classified as active on the Kidney Transplant (KT) waitlist, 2) as a surgical prehabilitation intervention targeting the pre-frail/ frail KT waitlist population. It consists of two phases- an open label pilot and a randomized waitlist control trial, and 3) pilot test the feasibility and acceptability for CAPABLE Transplant in symptom and waitlist specific metrics amongst low-income active kidney transplant waitlist candidates.

The purpose of this study is to determine if use of a nonmydriatic fundus camera using autonomous artificial intelligence software at the point of care increases the proportion of underserved youth with diabetes screened for diabetic retinopathy, and to determine the diagnostic accuracy of the autonomous AI system in detecting diabetic retinopathy from retinal images of youth with diabetes.

iTHRIVE intervention is a 2-arm randomized controlled trial testing the effects of digital FARMacy, personalized dietitian coaching with produce prescriptions, and home blood pressure measurement in 100 hypertensive adults living in high food priority areas in counties in Maryland.

The goal of this study is to learn if a nurse-led, task-shifting, community-based program can help lower blood pressure in adults aged 25 and older with uncontrolled high blood pressure (hypertension) in Monrovia, Liberia. The program is delivered through community-based mobile clinics by community health nurses (CHNs) trained in WHO-aligned hypertension care within the Ministry of Health's (MOH) Community Health hypertension management protocols. Participants will: * Receive blood pressure treatment from trained community health nurses (CHNs) at community-based mobile clinics in their communities, including medication and lifestyle counseling. * Complete surveys at their first visit, at 4 to 6 weeks, and at 3 months about their experience, satisfaction, and medication use. * Attend follow-up visits at the mobile clinic based on their blood pressure levels. Community health nurses delivering the program will complete structured training and be invited to complete surveys before and after training, and to take part in interviews about their experience at the end of the study. The study will take place over 7 months in five high-thoroughfare communities in Monrovia, Liberia, and aims to enroll 150 participants.

This is a research study to better understand how long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA) works to prevent HIV in people. This study will also evaluate the impact of endogenous and therapeutic hormones on CAB-LA pharmacology. The investigators will also evaluate if participants experience any medical problems when taking CAB-LA.

Liver transplant (LT) recipients with a history of alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) may encounter various psychosocial and medical challenges during post-LT recovery, even beyond the initial post-transplant period. Effective and sustainable interventions will be crucial for improving patient outcomes. This clinical trial will examine the impact of peer support specialists (PSS) on the recovery experience of individuals who received LT for ALD. The trial seeks to answer two main questions: * Are LT recipients who work with PSS less likely to resume alcohol use or tend to drink less overall? * Do LT recipients who work with PSS engage more with recommended medical care and have better overall survival?

This is a multi-site, double-blind, randomized clinical trial of the 5-HT2A receptor agonist psilocybin for smoking cessation. Four sites with experience in conducting psilocybin research will be involved in this trial: Johns Hopkins University (JHU), the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), and New York University (NYU). The proposed study will treat 66 participants (22 at each site), randomized to receive either: 1) oral psilocybin (30 mg in session 1 and either 30 mg or 40 mg in session 2); or 2) oral niacin (150 mg in session 1 and either 150 mg or 200 mg in session 2), with sessions 1 week apart.

This research is being done to better understand opportunistic infections and cancer in transplant recipients with HIV who receive livers from a donor with HIV compared to livers from donors without HIV.