Telomeres and T-cell Receptor Excision Circles (TRECs) From Peripheral Blood in Normal Subjects Over Time

Launched by UNIVERSITÉ DE SHERBROOKE · Nov 6, 2013

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This is a long-term, observing study looking at whether certain blood markers can help predict how early inflammatory arthritis might behave. Researchers will measure how telomere length (the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes) in blood cells changes over time, and they’ll count TREC markers (related to new T cells) as well. They plan to enroll about 200 adults and follow them for up to five years, including people with recent inflammatory arthritis and healthy volunteers who are matched by age and sex. Blood samples and a routine blood count are taken at baseline and then at several time points in the first year, with yearly check-ins for the rest of the study.

Who can participate? Adults aged 18 to 85 who are generally healthy for their age, with no active infections or severe chronic illnesses, and who don’t have a history of cancer (except a minor skin cancer) or major heart or immune problems. The study aims to compare healthy controls with patients who have recent inflammatory arthritis to help interpret the results. It is an observational study, so no treatment is given as part of the study. It’s being conducted at the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke in Sherbrooke, Canada, led by Dr. Gilles Boire, with Université de Sherbrooke as sponsor and Janssen as a collaborator. Enrollment is currently by invitation, and while the study started in 2005, primary data collection is expected to wrap up in early 2025 with final study completion planned for 2026. No results are available yet.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Healthy-for-age subjects, as defined by Absence of acute infectious, traumatic or immunologic disease; Absence of severe chronic diseases Age and sex concordant with the stratification of patients from a longitudinal cohort of early inflammatory arthritis (EUPA)
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • History of cancer (except a single episode of non-melanocytic skin cancer) Severe cardiovascular disease (i.e. difficult to control or requiring multiple drugs) Chronic infection Inflammatory arthritis Severe high blood pressure or diabetes (i.e. difficult to control or requiring multiple drugs) Any severe disease affecting function or difficult to control or requiring multiple drugs