Clinical Trials Watch — 2026-07-01

TITLE: Clinical Trials Watch — Glioblastoma Ph3 Enrolls, Novartis PIT565 Advances in RA

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This Week's Signal

A relatively thin week on the registry, but one notable Phase III oncology readout candidate remains actively enrolling, and Novartis continues to build its immunology pipeline with an early-phase RA asset. No terminations flagged. Grouping by phase below.

Phase III — Oncology Watch

• 🚩 NCT05902169 (CarThera) continues enrollment in its pivotal trial of the Sonocloud-9 ultrasound BBB-opening device plus carboplatin versus standard-of-care lomustine or temozolomide in recurrent glioblastoma, targeting n=560 with overall survival as the primary endpoint — a rare device-plus-chemo combo betting on mechanical BBB disruption to salvage a historically brutal indication.

Phase I — Immunology

• NCT07029555 (Novartis) has moved its ascending-dose study of PIT565 in rheumatoid arthritis to active/not-recruiting at n=57, with safety/AE incidence as the primary endpoint — an early tell that Novartis is progressing another immunology candidate through dose-finding on schedule.

Early Phase I — Pain

• NCT07675304 (Poland's National Institute of Geriatrics, Rheumatology and Rehabilitation) is recruiting 90 patients to evaluate mesotherapy for chronic non-specific low back pain, with NRS pain change as the primary endpoint — a small government-sponsored evaluation of a modality that remains poorly evidenced in Western guidelines.

Non-Interventional & Device/Procedure Studies (Phase NA)

Several procedure, digital-health, and behavioral studies are active or completed this cycle — none pivotal, but a few worth tracking:

• NCT07252856 (Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi) is recruiting 306 post-MI and heart-failure patients into a transcultural digital cardiac rehab platform, measuring 6-month change in the AHA Life's Essential 9 composite — a useful test of whether digital rehab can move a hard cardiovascular health metric.
• NCT05851768 (National Cancer Institute, Egypt) is comparing dexmedetomidine vs. magnesium sulphate as bupivacaine adjuncts in erector spinae blocks for thoracotomy, with total postoperative morphine consumption as the endpoint — small (n=60) but relevant to opioid-sparing anesthesia protocols.
• NCT07672002 (University of Coimbra) will pilot Cuidar-ME, a web-based psychological intervention for peri- and post-menopausal women (n=150), with quality-of-life change as the primary endpoint; enrollment opens September.
• NCT05541783 (Fudan University) completed a comparison of laparoscopic-assisted vs. totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy in gastric cancer (n=213), reading out on EORTC QLQ-C30 physical function and pain domains — watch for the publication to inform surgical technique selection.

Completed Observational Studies

• NCT06694779 (Fondazione IRCCS San Gerardo dei Tintori) wrapped the PREDIC-TO study, a large (n=1,504) observational effort characterizing thrombotic event rates in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma — likely to feed into future VTE-prophylaxis risk models for DLBCL.
• NCT01150721 (NIH Clinical Center) closed its long-running (n=177) methods study comparing expectorated sputum, induced sputum, and pharyngeal swabs for culture and cytokine analysis in pulmonary non-tuberculous mycobacterial infection — relevant to NTM diagnostic standardization.
• NCT05709873 (Northwestern) completed a tiny (n=7) narcolepsy nightmare frequency study — hypothesis-generating at best given the sample size.

Bottom Line

No Phase III readouts this week and no terminations. The signal to watch remains CarThera's Sonocloud-9 OS readout in recurrent GBM — the only pivotal oncology trial in this batch — while Novartis's PIT565 RA program quietly clears its Phase I dose escalation.