Clinical Research Directory

Primary Care-Hospital Embedding: a Prospective, Multicentric, Observational Study

This is a multicentric, prospective, observational study with two cohorts and adjunctive procedure. It aims at collecting and analyzing data about the function of an innovative hospital-territory integration health service for the management of patients with intermediate urgency, or emergency department "white codes." This service, activated in the participating centers, will be provided in two alternative modalities, one so-called "dual specialty" (cardiology and diabetes specialist outpatient clinic) and a second one more focused on the figure of the specialist in Internal Medicine. The investigators will monitor the population treated in these centers (presenting complaint, medical history, clinical-radiological data, performed therapies and overall health path) and the degree of satisfaction of the General Practitioners who sent their patients there and the degree of satisfaction of the patients themselves. The data collected will also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the outpatient clinics in terms of reducing improper admissions to the Emergency Departments and hospitalizations. The two modes of service delivery will be compared. This is an 18-month study, sponsored by our Scientific Directorate and carried out on a nonprofit basis. The study will enroll 246 patients and 30 healthy volunteer General Practitioners. The clinical trial will be conducted in accordance with Good Clinical Practice standards.

Fever of Unknown Origin (FUO) in Elderly Patients

Objective: Fever of unknown (FUO) origin remains challenging in geriatric patients. Geriatric patients have a blunted immune response responsible for altered fever mechanisms and immune cells responses. Consequently, FUO could be inappropriately named and could be changed in Inflammation of unknown origin (IUO) in this specific population. Furthermore, the studies of FUO in this group are (out)dated and the diagnostic methods have evolved achieving a better sensitivity and specificity. The aim of our study is to assess the spectrum of diseases responsible of FUO or IUO in elderly patients compared to younger patients and to define the diagnostic approach using new diagnostic investigations. The second aim of our study is to assess the usefulness of inflammatory markers, demographic data and comorbidity to differentiate the cause of FUO/IUO. Design: Patients with FUO or IUO will prospectively be recruited at the geriatric unit and the internal medicine unit of the UZ hospital during four years. The demographic, social and medical data will be screened. All diagnostic methods will be described.