Pharyngitis (Sore Throat)

Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) occurs when stomach acid flows back into the esophagus and throat, causing symptoms like heartburn, acid regurgitation, throat irritation, hoarseness, difficulty swallowing, and a dry cough. This condition may be caused by weak lower esophageal sphincter muscles, hiatal hernia, or movement disorders in the esophagus or stomach. Researchers are exploring whether voice samples can detect characteristic changes related to reflux, potentially offering a simple, non-invasive way to identify this condition early. This observational study involves patients undergoing standard diagnostic tests for reflux, including gastroscopy, esophageal manometry, and 24-hour impedance pH measurement. Participants will be grouped into those with confirmed reflux and those without. Voice recordings and questionnaires will be collected at diagnosis and, for reflux patients, again five months after starting treatment. The recordings will be digitally analyzed for typical vocal changes associated with reflux by a Swiss technology center. Participants will provide voice samples via microphone and complete questionnaires without needing extra hospital visits. The study lasts up to five months and stores data securely in encrypted form following strict privacy rules. Researchers aim to identify vocal markers linked to reflux and understand how they relate to symptoms and treatment effects, with results expected in 2025.

Researchers are evaluating the safety, tolerability, and effectiveness of the gene therapy SENS-501 in children aged 6 to 31 months who have severe to profound hearing loss caused by mutations in the Otoferlin gene. This open-label Phase I/II study focuses on children with pre-lingual hearing loss due to these genetic mutations, aiming to better understand how this treatment works in this young population. The study involves administering SENS-501 directly into one ear using a special injection system. It includes a dose-escalation phase where children receive either a low or high dose, followed by a dose expansion phase where the dose recommended from earlier phases is given. The treatment is given as a single unilateral intracochlear injection, and the administration system's safety, performance, and usability are also evaluated. Participants will be followed for up to 5 years to monitor safety and tolerability and to assess hearing improvement using auditory brainstem response (ABR) and pure tone audiometry (PTA). Additional evaluations include clinical checks of the administration system shortly after treatment. Throughout the study, children will undergo hearing tests and medical assessments to measure outcomes and track any side effects or complications from the treatment and procedure.

Researchers are evaluating INNA-051, an intranasal powder designed to boost the innate immune system, to see if it can safely reduce the occurrence, severity, or duration of respiratory viral infections in generally healthy adults aged 18 to 45 who are at risk of exposure due to their living or work environments. This Phase 2a trial focuses on viral respiratory infections, which are a major health concern worldwide and cause significant illness and death. Toll-like receptors targeted by INNA-051 play a key role in the body's immune defense against viruses. The study has two parts: Part A tests the safety and tolerability of INNA-051 when self-administered once weekly for 4 weeks during the respiratory virus season, compared to placebo. Part B evaluates safety, tolerability, and effectiveness over 12 weeks of weekly INNA-051 use in preventing symptoms from laboratory-confirmed respiratory viral infections. Both parts use a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design, with participants using the nasal spray at home. Participants will be monitored through clinical assessments, questionnaires on nasal symptoms, and laboratory tests including blood counts and liver function over the treatment periods and follow-up weeks. In Part B, researchers will track the number of symptomatic infections confirmed by RT-qPCR, symptom severity scores, time to symptom resolution, infection duration, and quality of daily living. Safety is assessed by recording any adverse events throughout the study, which lasts up to 16 weeks depending on the part enrolled.

Adenoidectomy is the most common ear, nose, and throat surgery performed in children to remove lymphoid tissue from the nasopharynx and open the nasal airways. This procedure usually improves symptoms and quality of life, but some children may experience symptoms again due to leftover or regrown lymphoid tissue, which sometimes requires another surgery. The study aims to understand if individual patient factors like sex, age, weight, height, and soft palate length affect how well the traditional adenoidectomy technique removes this tissue. The traditional adenoidectomy is done without directly seeing the surgical area, often using instruments like an adenoid curette or Shambaugh adenotome. This method can sometimes leave residual tissue behind, which may cause symptom recurrence. This study observes pediatric patients undergoing this traditional surgical technique to evaluate how anatomical and individual factors relate to the completeness of tissue removal. Participants are children evaluated for adenoidectomy and followed for up to five years to assess surgical outcomes related to anatomical factors. Researchers will collect data on these patient-specific characteristics and monitor the presence of residual adenoid tissue after surgery. The main outcome measured is how these anatomical factors influence the success of the surgery over time, helping to clarify reasons behind tissue persistence or regrowth after the procedure.

Researchers are evaluating an artificial intelligence-assisted system designed to improve the detection of anatomical sites and lesions during nasopharyngolaryngoscopy, a procedure used to examine the nasopharynx and larynx. The study aims to address challenges of traditional procedures such as incomplete visualization and unclear imaging by training and validating a deep learning model using collected images and patient data from multiple centers. The study involves collecting electronic nasopharyngolaryngoscopy images and baseline patient information, including gender and age, to train and validate the AI model. Initially, the model is trained using a retrospective dataset and internally validated. Subsequently, the clinical performance of the model is assessed prospectively by enrolling patients, collecting new nasopharyngolaryngoscopy videos, and testing the model against this independent dataset. Participants will undergo standard nasopharyngolaryngoscopy exams, with their images and videos collected for analysis. Researchers will compare the model’s lesion detection and anatomic site recognition performance to that of physicians. Outcome measures are evaluated within three months after completing data collection. The study runs from December 2025 to March 2027 and includes assessments of diagnostic accuracy and comparative performance between the AI system and medical professionals.

Researchers are investigating whether adding a diagnostic test that can distinguish whether an acute respiratory illness is caused by bacteria or viruses early in the evaluation can improve patient management and reduce healthcare resource use. The study focuses on adults presenting to the Emergency Department (ED) with undiagnosed respiratory infections who meet SIRS criteria and require immediate blood tests and treatment. The goal is to see if this test affects decisions about further diagnostic work, antimicrobial use, hospital stay length, and related costs. Participants are randomly assigned to one of two groups. The experimental group receives the usual care plus results from the MeMed BVae biomarker test, which analyzes a blood sample to provide a score that may help guide treatment. The control group receives standard care without the test results. Both groups are managed by clinicians following standard practice protocols. The study aims to compare outcomes such as additional testing, use of antibiotics, hospital admissions, and length of stay between these groups. During the study, participants will be monitored from admission to the ED through about 28 days of follow-up. Researchers will track costs related to diagnostic tests, consultations, antimicrobial treatments, hospital stays, and emergency department visits. They will also assess hospital length of stay up to six months post-admission, the number of patients returning to the ED within 72 hours, and appropriate antibiotic use based on infection type. Safety and patient management quality will be evaluated by reviewing these clinical and resource measures.

Researchers are evaluating the safety and effectiveness of stopping antibiotic treatment early in adults hospitalized with respiratory viral infections. This study focuses on patients with moderately severe disease who test positive for respiratory viruses such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza virus, or human metapneumovirus. The goal is to determine if early discontinuation of antibiotics leads to similar clinical outcomes compared to continuing antibiotic therapy, aiming to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use and combat antimicrobial resistance. Participants are randomly assigned to either stop antibiotic therapy as started by their admitting physician or to continue antibiotic therapy without changes. The study monitors early clinical response at 120 hours after randomization, defined by survival with symptom improvement and no need for rescue antibiotics. Secondary assessments include mortality rates, hospital stay duration, antibiotic use, and readmission rates, all measured during hospital admission and up to 30 days after discharge. During the trial, participants undergo nasopharyngeal swab testing to confirm viral infection and are monitored closely for symptoms, survival, and antibiotic use. Researchers evaluate clinical response at 120 hours and track outcomes such as mortality, hospital stay length, and antibiotic doses until discharge and 30 days later. The study aims to gather detailed safety and efficacy data over the hospital stay and follow-up period, supporting more targeted antibiotic use in viral respiratory infections.

Researchers are evaluating the use of an artificial intelligence (AI) app to improve the diagnosis and treatment of ear infections in young children aged 6 to 24 months who have cold symptoms. Ear infections can be hard to diagnose accurately in this age group due to small ear canals and limited examination time. The study aims to see how the AI app affects clinical decisions about ear infections and antibiotic use compared to standard clinical exams. The study involves 300 children who will have their ears examined both with the AI app using a smartphone-attached otoscope and by a clinician using a standard otoscope. Each child will receive two ear exams during a single visit. The AI app records and analyzes images to provide a diagnosis and treatment recommendation, which is compared to the clinician's diagnosis. Clinicians will then review the AI app's findings before making a final treatment decision. The study uses a within-subject design where each child's ears are assessed by both methods to compare antimicrobial prescription rates and diagnosis accuracy. Participants will be monitored for 10 days after enrollment to track symptom changes and any side effects from antibiotic use, such as diarrhea or diaper rash. Parents will enter daily symptom scores in electronic diaries. Medical records will be reviewed for three months to identify any recurrences of ear infections. The primary outcome is the rate of antimicrobial prescriptions on the day of diagnosis. Secondary outcomes include diagnostic rates, image quality, symptom severity scores, and infection recurrences. The total study participation involves one visit for exams and follow-up symptom tracking and record review.

Researchers are investigating autoinflammatory diseases (AID), which involve recurring inflammatory episodes without infection, cancer, or adaptive immune system problems. This study focuses on both monogenic hereditary periodic syndromes and polygenic or multifactorial AID, including rare conditions like Behçet's disease, Still disease, Schnitzler's disease, PFAPA syndrome, chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis, non-infectious uveitis and scleritis, among others. The goal is to gather detailed data to improve understanding and management of these rare diseases through an international collaboration. The study uses the AIDA registry, a secure online platform for collecting demographic, genetic, clinical, laboratory, radiologic, and therapeutic information. Data are gathered retrospectively and prospectively during routine clinical visits scheduled every 3-6 months. Eleven registries focus on different AID conditions, enabling comprehensive data collection to identify clinical patterns, treatment impacts, and long-term outcomes over a period of at least 10 years. Participants provide information during their usual care visits, allowing researchers to track changes in disease activity, organ involvement, inflammatory markers, visual function, pain levels, fatigue, fertility, and socioeconomic factors. The study monitors these outcomes over multiple timepoints up to 120 months. Data privacy is ensured by pseudonymizing patient information. This registry supports multiple clinical studies and aims to enhance knowledge, awareness, and future research on autoinflammatory diseases worldwide.

Researchers are evaluating how changing the way patients with a sore throat are assessed might reduce unnecessary antibiotic use. This study compares whether medical practitioners, nurses, or pharmacists are the best initial assessors for patients with sore throat symptoms. It also investigates the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in these patients, reflecting changes in COVID-19's impact over time and its transition from pandemic to endemic. The study involves three groups where patients with acute sore throat are first assessed either by a physician, a nurse, or a pharmacist. Each assessor follows the current Swedish guideline, which recommends no antibiotics or testing for patients with fewer Centor criteria and testing plus antibiotics consideration only if Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is present for those with more Centor criteria. The pharmacist assessment is not standard practice in Sweden but is included as an experimental approach. Participants will be evaluated immediately after their consultation for guideline adherence, illness severity, patient type, and presence of SARS-CoV-2. The study monitors these outcomes to understand the best patient flow for sore throat management and the role of COVID-19 in these cases. The total participation duration aligns with the consultation and immediate post-consultation assessment, with no extended long-term follow-up mentioned.