Clinical Research Directory

Motivating Physical Activity With Behavioural interVention and Electrical Stimulation Remotely in Intermittent Claudication

Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) is a common vascular disease which commonly causes limb pain and reduced exercise tolerance termed Intermittent Claudication (IC). People with PAD and IC have impaired quality of life, reduced walking ability, and increased mortality compared to those who do not have the condition. Improving physical activity (PA) is important in individuals with IC it can improve function, morbidity and mortality rates. While supervised exercise classes are recommended by healthcare authorities they are geographically sparse, and not always accessible due to individuals walking limitations. While home-based exercise can be accessible and improve walking ability, it can be challenging for people with IC to initially plan, conduct, and stay motivated to complete a walking program unsupported, especially when they experience limb pain when walking. Investigators have shown that Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS), a non-invasive pain management device, with aims to improve pain and walking distances in patients with IC may be an acceptable modality alongside advice and support from a physiotherapist to overcome these challenges. Investigators have also shown that motivational interviewing, education, and goal-setting with a physiotherapist (physical therapist) has the potential to increase PA, and quality of life. This study aims to conduct a feasibility trial of four telehealth physiotherapy sessions, alongside the provision of a CE-marked TENS device to reduce limb pain during physical activity. This will be compared to the usual care offered in NHS Lanarkshire

MetfOrmin BenefIts Lower Extremities With Intermittent Claudication

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) affects over 20% of aged adults and is very common among Veterans due significant tobacco use. PAD is due to the progressive blockage of peripheral arteries, predominantly to the legs, and results in intermittent claudication (IC) or recurrent muscle pain with activity secondary to insufficient blood supply. Those with PAD and IC experience a progressive decline in walking and poor quality of life. There is no effective medical treatment for PAD and IC. Metformin is a safe and effective treatment for Type 2 diabetes but it can also reduce inflammation, oxidative stress, and improve energy requirements as well as improve blood flow to the legs. Therefore, the investigators will test the ability of Metformin to improve overall functional status, reduce PAD progression, and reduce systemic inflammation in Veterans suffering from PAD and IC in a randomized, placebo controlled trial: Metformin BenefIts Lower Extremities with Intermittent Claudication (MOBILE IC) Trial. The success of this trial may identify a safe and effective treatment for PAD and IC.

Improving Mobility After Revascularization in Peripheral Artery Disease

Lower extremity revascularization combined with supervised exercise significantly improves walking performance compared to revascularization alone in people who have PAD without limb threatening ischemia. However, supervised exercise is inaccessible or burdensome for most PAD patients. Investigators hypothesize that home-based exercise combined with lower extremity revascularization will significantly improve walking performance compared to revascularization alone in patients with PAD undergoing revascularization for disabling PAD. Investigators further hypothesize that inorganic nitrate, a major source of nitric oxide (NO) abundant in beetroot juice, will improve walking performance after lower extremity revascularization, compared to placebo. In preclinical models, NO inhibits inflammation, neointimal hyperplasia, thrombosis, and vascular smooth muscle cell migration at sites of revascularization. NO increases angiogenesis and perfusion, repairs skeletal muscle damaged by ischemia, and stimulates mitochondrial activity. In a randomized clinical trial with a 2 x 2 factorial design, the trial will test the following two primary hypotheses in 386 patients randomized within three months of a successful lower extremity revascularization for disabling PAD: First, that home-based exercise combined with lower extremity revascularization will improve six-minute walk distance more than revascularization alone at 6-month follow-up (Primary Aim #1). Second, that nitrate-rich beetroot juice combined with lower extremity revascularization will improve six-minute walk, compared to placebo combined with revascularization at 6-month follow-up (Primary Aim #2).

Swedish Drug-elution Trial in Peripheral Arterial Disease

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) causes reduced blood flow to the lower limb(s) due to stenosis or occlusion in the supplying arteries. Symptoms of PAD range from ischemic rest pain and/or ischemic ulcers/gangrene (critical limb ischemia), putting the extremity at risk of amputation, to exercise-induced pain (intermittent claudication), limiting the patients daily activities. Invasive treatments are often indicated to prevent amputations and to alleviate symptoms. More than two thirds of these procedures are presently performed with endovascular techniques (i.e. percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, PTA with or without stent implantation). In coronary artery disease, stents eluting anti-proliferative drugs (drug eluting stents, DES) reduce restenosis and improve clinical results for the majority of patients. Drug eluting balloons (DEB) are a promising alternative, but there is still little evidence that DES or DEB technology improve clinical outcome in PAD. However, promising results utilizing these new technologies in PAD have been reported in a few studies. In this trial, we test the hypothesis that drug eluting (DE) technology is superior to conventional endovascular treatment (no-DE) in terms of important clinical outcomes, when applied on infrainguinal (femoropopliteal and/or infrapopliteal) obstructive vascular lesions. The trial consists of 2 separate parallel studies, SWEDEPAD 1 and SWEDEPAD 2, each defined by the severity of peripheral arterial disease. Patients with critical limb ischemia are allocated to SWEDEPAD 1 and patients with intermittent claudication are allocated to SWEDEPAD 2.

Response to Exercise and Nitric Oxide in PAD

RESIST PAD is a randomized trial of 200 PAD patients to establish: 1) whether a 12-week exercise intervention significantly increases Δ nitrite at 12-week follow-up, compared to control; 2) whether exercise "responders" have greater Δ nitrite increases compared to "non-responders"; 3) among non-responders, whether supplementing exercise with nitrate-rich beetroot juice between weeks 13-24 increases Δ nitrite and improves 6-minute walk at 24-week follow-up.

Personalised Multicomponent Exercise Programme in Peripheral Arterial Disease

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is characterised as an atherosclerotic disease, most common in the lower limbs (aortoiliac, femoropopliteal, and infrapopliteal arterial segments), which causes a decrease in blood flow to the areas adjacent to and posterior to the affected area. Intermittent claudication (IC) is the most common symptom in this disease that appears with exertion and relieves with rest, causing fatigue, cramps, discomfort, or pain in the lower limbs due to limited blood flow to the affected muscles. Supervised physical exercise has emerged as the first line of intervention in improving the symptoms of intermittent claudication and disease progression, and in the last decade there has been an exponential increase in the use of wearable technologies to monitor dose-response. However, the approach used is still simplistic because it is not personalised. In other words, patients with similar diagnoses and symptoms get the same treatment, without personalising the stimulus according to their exercise responses and level of adaptation. With this in mind, this study aims to monitoring the real-time response of a multicomponent exercise programme (cardiovascular and resistance training) to personalise the dose-response, and use artificial intelligence models to gather and analyse vast amounts of data towards grouping/differentiating based on individual responses. The main hypothesis is that a supervised multicomponent exercise programme will improve the functional capacity of patients with PAD in a cluster personalised approach.

Supervised Exercise-based Rehabilitation for People With Intermittent Claudication in Denmark

The goal of this project is to implement a protocol for a supervised exercise therapy intervention including smoking cessation in the municipalities in region Zealand in Denmark. The participants are adults with intermittent claudication. The objective of this project is to describe: 1. The development and design of the implementation process of a rehabilitative intervention including SET and smoking cessation in Region Zealand with a 6-month follow-up period after completion of the SET. 2. The ongoing quality monitoring process of the implementation in terms of referral, recruitment, retention, data completeness, intervention delivery and attendance and to collect feedback that will guide refinements of the intervention delivery and data collection. 3. Outcomes available for assessment of benefits and harms from the SET intervention. Participants will be asked to do supervised exercise therapy by walking on a treadmill for 3 times a week for 12 weeks, and engage in smoking cessation, if they are smoking.

Heat Therapy and Peripheral Artery Disease

The purpose of the study is to assess the efficacy of a novel 8 week heat therapy intervention in intermittent claudication compared to usual care controls. Participants will be enrolled on a wait-list control randomised trial testing physiological, mechanistic, and health related outcome measures.

Home-based Exercice Therapy for Patients With Intermittent Claudication Using a New Smartphone Application

The main characteristic of PAD is to limit physical activity by the appearance of claudication of the lower limbs which limits the walking distance, or the maximum distance traveled by the patient before the pain forces to stop. In daily practice, the walking distance is rarely measured at the time of treatment. Walking rehabilitation is the first-line treatment for these patients (class 1 recommendation from the AHA 2005 and the ESC 2017 with level A evidence). According to the recommendation, a walking session must last at least 30 minutes at the rate of 3 sessions per week for a minimum of 6 months. Walking rehabilitation should be systematically offered to all claudicating patients, whether operated on or not. It is often sufficient for mild claudication with a walking distance of more than 500 meters. Surgery should be reserved for patients in whom rehabilitation has failed and in whom the claudication is severe (walking distance less than 500 meters). Surgical intervention should not replace rehabilitation, but should be complementary. Supervised rehabilitation in specialized centers is rarely offered because it is not easily available and involves additional expenses and constraints for the patient (transport, fewer work periods for active patients, etc.). In the absence of specialized center, simple advice is most often given to the patient, who then only has to rely on his personal motivation: this is the so-called "go home and walk". Therefore, access to well-conducted rehabilitation is a fundamental element of the management of patients with intermittent claudication, which is currently lacking. In the age of digital health, it is necessary to develop innovative tools allowing self-rehabilitation of the patient in addition with remote monitoring by the doctor. Recent studies have validated and highlighted the interest of using GPS technology for the evaluation of walking activity in claudicants. To date, there are 2 published examples of smartphone applications developed specifically for exercise rehabilitation. The main shortcomings of the solutions proposed in these publications are: * The need to buy a specific GPS box * Discomfort for the patient to carry the box either in a backpack or over the shoulder * The lack of means for the patient to indicate the precise moment when the pain appears * And consequently the absence of clinical analysis centered on the symptom "walk induced pain" Consumer smartphone applications for GPS activity tracking are not intended for medical use and do not indicate when pain occurs. In this study, the University Hospital of REIMS will establish a scientific collaboration with the company VascInnove® for the use of a smartphone application, called E-REVA® which offers: * an assessment of walking activity and claudication parameters (appearance of pain, walking distance, recovery time after pain, total distance travelled, walking speed, etc.) * help with self-rehabilitation * quality of life and walking questionnaires The main innovation is the presence of a button allowing the patient to indicate when the pain appears. The patient will be able to have access via the smartphone application to his statistics and the evolution of his performance over time. The prescribing practitioner will have access, via a secure website, to the statistics of his patient, to whom he will be able to give personalized advice during follow-up consultations. The aim of this study is to carry out a single-centre prospective randomized stratified study (depending on whether or not patient has been revascularized) in patients with intermittent claudication who will or will not use the rehabilitation assistance smartphone application, seen in consultation for vascular surgery and vascular medicine at the University Hospital of Reims.

Investigation of the Perfusion of Gluteal Muscle in Patients With Intermittent Gluteal Claudication by Non-invasive MSOT

The objective of the proposed study is to define independent parameters for the diagnostic assessment of the perfusion situation of the gluteal muscle based on multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) in patients with gluteal claudication in Fontaine stage II (intermittent claudication) pre and post-intervention.

An E-health Intervention for Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease

The specific study aim is to determine whether a 12-week digitally delivered behavior change intervention for patients with peripheral artery disease increases walking ability, reduces smoking, improves quality of life and improves medication adherence. The primary and secondary endpoints will primarily be captured at a 12 weeks follow-up visit, but a follow-up visit after 12 months is also planned; to assess longer term effect on outcomes and healthcare cost.

Heat Therapy for Peripheral Arterial Disease (HEATPAD)

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a disabling condition, with symptoms of muscle cramping or pain on exertion, which can substantially reduce quality of life. This study aims to see if AirGlove device improves participants circulation. This is phase 1 study and will be taken in 3 parts: Phase 1a will be undertaken in 10 healthy volunteers to assess the effects of the AirGlove device on lower limb arterial flow, tissue perfusion, quality of life and product usability following a single session. Phase 1b will be undertaken in 20 participants with intermittent claudication to assess the effects of the AirGlove device on lower limb arterial flow, tissue perfusion, quality of life and product usability both in a single session and following a 12-week trial of heat therapy. Phase 1c will be undertaken in 10 participants with critical limb ischaemia Rutherford stage 4 (rest pain). Lower limb arterial flow, tissue perfusion, pain scores, quality of life, and product usability will be assessed both in a single session and following a 2-12 week trial of heat therapy.

The Chocolate Touch Study

The Chocolate Touch study is a randomized, multi-center, prospective, adaptive study, designed to show sufficient safety and effectiveness of the Chocolate Touch™ for use in superficial femoral or popliteal arteries with the intention of obtaining regulatory approval to market this device in the United States