the United States, it is standard treatment for patients with high-risk neuroblastoma (NBL) to receive the drugs carboplatin, etoposide and melphalan (CEM) as the preparative regimen in Consolidation therapy prior to Autologous Stem Cell Transplant (ASCT). BuMel Consolidation therapy has recently been studied in patients with high-risk NBL in some European countries. The findings from those studies indicate that the use of BuMel prior to ASCT may be linked to an increase in the survival rate for patients when compared to CEM. Those studies also indicate that the chance of the disease coming back (a relapse) may be lower among the patients who received BuMel Consolidation therapy. In North America the BuMel combination is considered experimental. In this study, researchers want to find out if a combination of busulfan and melphalan (BuMel) can be given as Consolidation therapy prior to ASCT for subjects with newly diagnosed high-risk NBL. The main goal of this study is to find out what effects, good and/or bad, a BuMel preparative regimen given before ASCT has on people with newly diagnosed high-risk NBL.

The study will compare two durations of treatment with Octreotide in patients with confirmed esophageal variceal hemorrhage who have undergone successful endoscopy and possible endoscopic therapy for control of bleeding. All procedures including the treatment are the standard of care. Octreotide infusion and endoscopic therapy for esophageal variceal bleeding are not investigational.

Ependymoma is a type of rare childhood cancer that occurs in the brain and spinal cord. Survival statistics are generally disappointing with a 5-year survival of 50-64%. The standard of care for ependymoma is maximal surgical resection followed by radiation therapy directed at the primary site of disease.

Radiation therapy is associated with immediate and long-term toxicities in children, especially young children. For this reason, it has been the practice of some doctors not to give radiation therapy to children with ependymoma when the tumor has been completely surgically removed. The investigators who designed this study have created strict measures to choose those who will not receive additional treatment after surgery and careful follow-up to minimize the risks to those who are assigned to observation only.

This study is for women or men with hormone responsive breast cancer that has already been removed by surgery and have completed any required chemotherapy or radiation. The purpose of this study is to see whether treatment with everolimus plus hormone treatment after chemotherapy will increase the time without cancer returning. The current standard treatment after chemotherapy is hormone treatment alone. Everolimus is a drug currently approved for the treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic kidney cancer. It is considered investigational for breast cancer patients. In this study subjects will get hormone treatment with either everolimus or with placebo (a pill with no medication). The combination of hormone-treatment and everolimus is experimental in patients with breast cancer.
It is expected that subjects will be enrolled in this study for approximately 54 weeks or until side effects become too great, or until cancer returns. After subjects are finished with study treatment, they will return to the clinic every six months for the first 2 years and then yearly for the next 10 years.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus; SLE), Systemic Sclerosis (scleroderma; SSc) and Systemic Vasculitis (SV) are relatively rare rheumatic diseases that disproportionately impact the African American community, and particularly African American women. The causes of lupus, scleroderma and vasculitis are unknown, but thought to include both genetic and environmental factors. We are enrolling lupus, scleroderma, and vasculitis patients, and healthy control subjects. This is not a drug study. The purpose of this study is to better understand the factors that predispose people to develop lupus, scleroderma, and vasculitis. Information about medical, social and family history, medications, physical exam findings, and laboratory tests will be collected for analysis. This study will involve approximately 1360 volunteers.

Overwhelming evidence exists that some types of proteinuric kidney diseases are caused by the factor(s) present in patients' blood and body fluids. Identification and characterization of such factor(s) would greatly help in better and noninvasive diagnosis of such conditions, development of better therapeutic options, and potentially revealing underlying pathogenic mechanisms.
Owing to the tremendous capabilities of the proteomics facility within the Division of Nephrology we developed experiments that we think will result in significant improvement in our knowledge of major kidney diseases.

The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of hormone therapy (androgen deprivation) and TAK-700 plus radiation therapy with hormone therapy (androgen deprivation) and radiation therapy on patients with prostate cancer.
There are 2 treatment groups in this study. Group 1will receive hormone therapy plus radiation therapy only and Group 2 will receive hormone therapy and TAK-700 plus radiation therapy.
Subjects will receive hormone therapy for 24 months. Radiation will be given in 44 treatments over approximately 2 months. If the subject is in Group 2 they will take TAK-700 for 24 months. After the subject is finished receiving therapy, the study doctor will ask the subject to visit the office for follow-up exams every 6 months for 3 years and then once a year.

Currently, kidney disease affects up to 20% of the US population and is a strong contributor to morbidity and mortality in these patients. Specific therapies and diagnostic tools for kidney disease have been very slow to develop because of the absence of high quality samples and data that can be used for research studies. The purpose of this study is to develop a registry and sample bank called Poseidon (Prevention, Optimizing Safety, Early Intervention and DetectiOn in Nephrology) biobank that can be used for future research. In this study, patients can consent to donating their residual kidney tissue if they undergo a kidney biopsy and blood or urine during routine clinical care procedures. We will also collect blood and urine outside of clinical care.This study will allow biomedical research the ability to obtain specimens from patients with relevant diseases and appropriate clinical data. This study will collect patient demographic, clinical and historical data for a registry and patient samples will be deposited in the Poseidon biobank. Patients do not have to be diagnosed with Kidney Disease to be included in this study.

This study if for patients that have a blood disease and it's been determined that the best option for treating that blood disease is a cord blood transplant. Cord blood (CB) is blood that is taken from the umbilical cord and placenta of healthy newborn babies after childbirth. The cord blood collected from a newborn baby is called a cord blood unit. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers cord blood to be a biological drug. These are considered "investigational" products. This study will evaluate the safety of administration of the investigational cord blood units by carefully documenting all infusion-related problems.

Mid-urethral slings have been widely accepted as a treatment of choice for patients with stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Mid-Urethral sling surgery has been associated with good success rate and minimal morbidity.Minor complications are associated with these surgeries including bladder perforation, urethral injury or post operative complication such as de novo urgency and urge urinary incontinence, urinary retention or incomplete bladder emptying. Treatment approaches for complications included sling excision and urethral/bladder/ vaginal defect repair after sling intrusion or extrusion into these organs. Treatments for postoperative voiding dysfunction include clean intermittent catheterization, mid-urethral sling lysis, sling incision and formal urethrolysis. With urethrolysis, obstruction has been reported to be relieved in 65% to 93 with preservation of continence in 80% to 100% while the rate of SUI postoperative is 0 % to 19%.autologus fascial sling for relieve of obstruction with 54% of patients had no recurrence of their SUI [25]. On the other hand, there have been no published data on the use of autologus fascia lata pubovaginal sling to treat patient with recurrent SUI after incision of the mid-urethral mish slings. Urethral injection of bulking agent have been reported with 34% cure [26] and re-do mid urethral sling was reported to have only 53% success over 17 months of follow-up [9].
Our aim is to evaluate the subjective and objective outcomes of salvage treatment of failed mid-urethral mesh sling with sling incision, urethrolysis, autologus facial pubovaginal sling or other forms of diversion if needed. We also will evaluate if this procedure will help to improve in the quality of life of these patients.