Clinical trials

The white blood cells of patients with acute myeloid leukemia that have undergone allogeneic stem cell transplantation will be investigated. These are patient where the leukemia has returned after the transplantation.

Elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) occurs when pressure inside the skull rises above normal levels, potentially leading to brain damage or herniation. Monitoring ICP is critical for managing conditions like brain tumors, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. Current ICP monitoring methods are invasive and carry risks, including infection and brain damage. For less severe cases, lumbar puncture is a safer, less invasive alternative. This study explores the potential of a non-invasive method, using venous pressure near the eye, to estimate ICP. The goal is to assess whether the results from this non-invasive approach are similar to the invasive lumbar CSF pressure measurements.

The goal of this clinical trial is to test the combination of hypothermia and endovascular treatment in acute stroke patients with large vessel occlusion. The main question it aims to answer is: does an additional cooling to 35°C result in a benefit on clinical outcome ? Participants receive immediate cooling using a noninvasive transnasal cooling technique (RhonoChill) and are maintained at 35°C for 6 hours after reopening of the vessel using surface cooling, and then slowly rewarmed. Researchers will compare the intervention group (hypothermia and endovascular treatment and best medical treatment including iv thrombolysis) and control group (only endovascular treatment and best medical treatment including iv thrombolysis) to see if additional hypothermia leads to a better outcome after 3 months without relevant complications.

Background: Chronic subdural hematoma (cSDH) is a type of intracranial bleeding, predominantly affecting the elderly and males, with an estimated incidence of 8/100.000. The collection of subdural fluid expands slowly, leading eventually to brain tissue compression that results in neurological impairment such as seizures, cognitive decline, and paresis. Most patients need neurosurgical evacuation of the blood to improve and to prevent further, possibly permanent deterioration. Evidently, the cause of such a bleeding must be investigated and if possible treated, or preventive strategies need to be installed if possible. Spinal cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leaks are a known cause of cSDH but are widely underdiagnosed in this population. The spinal CSF leak causes CSF loss that leads to intracranial hypotension, expansion of intracerebral veins, and traction to the brain and the surrounding tissues. A cSDH is a severe complication of such a leak and occurs in about 30% of all cases with a predominance among the elderly. It is crucial to identify these patients with a spinal leak as treatment pathways differ essentially from patients without a leak. Some smaller studies indicated a prevalence of spinal CSF leaks among cSDH patients of 30% to 80% depending on selection criteria (age, extend of cSDH). Notably, the entity of the CSF-venous fistula, that has been discovered as recent as 9 years ago, and that by now is accounting for 20-25% of all spinal leaks, has not been considered in previous research on cSDH and spinal CSF leaks. Currently, there is no prospective data on spinal CSF leaks in patients with cSDH. Establishment of such data is crucial to improve diagnostic and therapeutic algorithms for spinal CSF leaks in patients with cSDH. Objective: To prospectively assess the prevalence of spinal CSF leaks in patients with cSDH Methods: This is a prospective observational, monocentric study on patients admitted due to cSDH to the Department of Neurosurgery at the Medical Center of the University of Freiburg. Treatment and diagnostic procedures will follow standard protocols. The number of spinal CSF leaks will be assessed to generate the prevalence of spinal CSF leaks in this patient cohort. Furthermore, clinical data, the specific type of the CSF leak, and imaging parameters are assessed systematically to estimate the diagnostic value of these measures.

The registry aims to follow clinically all consecutive patients treated by percutaneous coronary interventions at hospital \& university Fribourg.