Active clinical trials for "Abdominal Injuries"

At the end of most abdominal operations, the fascial layer is closed by stitching edges of the wound together. However, because of logistic and/or technical reasons or the patient's critical condition, the surgeon is forced to leave the abdomen open. The current approach for temporary coverage of abdomen is vacuum assisted techniques (VAT). This technique requires the use of vacuum-assisted drainage to remove blood or watery fluid from a wound or operative site. Although this is the most successful and commonly used procedure, there are some limitations to this method. For example, VAT have little effect on preventing lateral movement of the wound edges. Therefore, VAT it is not the ideal procedure in aiding surgeons to closed the abdomen. The purpose of this study is to compare usual care (vacuum or non-vacuum methods for temporary coverage of the OA) versus usual care plus a novel new abdominal binder device called ABRO™ that may aid in the closure of patients who undergo open abdomen closure procedures.

This is a research study to determine if a particular method of providing nutrition improves the clinical outcomes of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) who have undergone abdominal surgery and would require nutrition delivered via the bloodstream (called total parenteral nutrition or TPN). The nutrition method we are testing is a structured nutrition delivery plan that involves tube feeding, oral nutrition supplements, and the use of a device (called an indirect calorimeter or IC) to measure calorie needs. This study will also use two devices to measure fat and muscle mass to examine changes during hospitalization. Subjects will be followed throughout hospitalization where nutrition status and fat and muscle mass will be closely monitored. Study activities will begin within 72 hours of a patient's abdominal surgery. TPN (total parenteral nutrition, a method of feeding that bypasses the usual process of eating and digestion) will be started, a non-invasive method of assessing calorie needs (indirect calorimetry (IC)) will be started, a urine sample will be collected to help assist in protein needs, and fat/muscle mass will be measured using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), and an ultrasound. This is a minimal risk study and all products/devices used are non-invasive and FDA-approved. Indirect calorimetry and urine sample collection will be conducted every 3 days during the stay in the Intensive Care Unit - ICU, then every 5 days until hospital discharge. BIA and muscle ultrasound will be conducted every 7 days during ICU stay, then every 14 days until hospital discharge.

The DROP trial evaluates two ways of treating patients whose abdomens are left open after their abdominal surgery. The current standard of care at Sanford is for patients to have their wound covered with a sterile dressing connected to a vacuum with suction, which removes fluid from the abdomen. In this trial, we are evaluating the benefits of adding dialysis fluid to the abdomen periodically, prior to suctioning it out with the vacuum system. This trial will show if the addition of this fluid lowers the risk of complications and death, and allows the surgeon to close the abdomen sooner

Bleeding from intra-abdominal injuries is a leading cause of traumatic deaths in children. Abdominal CT is the reference standard test for diagnosing intra-abdominal injuries. Compelling reasons exist, however, to both aggressively evaluate injured children for intra-abdominal injuries with CT and to limit abdominal CT evaluation to solely those at non-negligible risk. The focused assessment sonography for trauma (FAST) examination can help focus patient evaluation in just this manner by potentially safely decreasing abdominal CT use in low risk children. This research study is a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial to determine whether use of the FAST examination, a bedside abdominal ultrasound, impacts care in 3,194 hemodynamically stable children with blunt abdominal trauma. The overall objectives of this proposal are 1) to determine the efficacy of using the FAST examination during the initial evaluation of children with blunt abdominal trauma, and 2) to identify factors associated with abdominal CT use in children considered very low risk for IAI after a negative FAST examination. The long-term objective of the research is to determine appropriate evaluation strategies to optimize the care of injured children, leading to improved quality of care and a reduction in morbidity and mortality.

The management of analgesia is the key issue in the management of a thoracic trauma patient to prevent respiratory complications. A multimodal approach is recommended but the question of the most suitable loco-regional analgesia technique remains. It must combine effectiveness and simplicity with the least risk to the patient. Today, epidural analgesia is the technique of choice, but it has certain disadvantages: difficulties in performing it at the thoracic level, undesirable effects, complications, and numerous contraindications. The investigator propose to carry out a single-centre, prospective, randomised, controlled pilot study evaluating the impact of loco-regional analgesia following the placement of erector spinae plane catheter in addition to systemic analgesia in patients with unilateral thoracic trauma. The aim is to demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique, which has fewer disadvantages than epidural analgesia. The interest of this study is thus to decrease the respiratory morbidity of thoracic trauma patients by avoiding a maximum of complications.

Children with blunt abdominal trauma often get a CT as the first line imaging to evaluate for intra-abdominal organ injury. CT scans have some downsides with regard to radiation exposure, costs, and need for transport. Contrast enhanced ultrasonography has recently shown some promise as a way to detect intra-abdominal organ injury and may be able to replace the need for conventional CT scanning, without the need for ionizing radiation and the ability to be performed at the bedside.

ERAS IN TRAUMA Enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) or enhanced recovery protocols (ERP) is a concept first described by Kehlet in the early 1990s .Since its introduction, ERAS protocols have been successfully used in elective gastrointestinal surgery (colorectal, hepatobiliary and gastric), and there has been widespread acceptance and implementation in other surgical disciplines including urology, vascular , thoracic surgery and orthopaedics. The approach employs a multimodal perioperative care pathway designed to attenuate the surgical stress response and accelerate postoperative recovery . These benefits should be easily transferrable to the trauma patient population, if not greater, since trauma patients are generally younger, fitter and metabolically stable. Trauma centres in developing countries constantly battle with reduced bed availability and restricted health care budgets. Optimization of health care practice is therefore urgent, particularly in trauma surgery. Penetrating abdominal trauma is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in large urban trauma centres. It accounts for a significant number of hospital admissions and consumes a large portion of the health care budget. In the trauma patient, the aim is to maintain the 'pre- injury' physiological status. Improving patient outcomes with reduced morbidity and early hospital discharge reduces the cost of treating these patients . The small pilot study by Moydien et al., showed that ERPS can be successfully implemented with significant shorter hospital stays without any increase in postoperative complications in a select group of trauma patients undergoing emergency laparotomy for isolated penetrating abdominal trauma. Furthermore, the study showed that ERPS can also be applied to patients undergoing emergency surgery. Given the fact that penetrating abdominal trauma remains a substantial burden of disease, especially in developing countries such as South Africa, this proven approach to patient care in elective surgery can now be safely employed in the trauma and emergency setting. Penetrating abdominal trauma remains a substantial burden of disease, especially in developing countries such as South Africa, and especially the Western Cape, where we have seen an increase in the number of trauma patients being treated for penetrating injuries at our level 1 centre. This has in turn led to severe constraints on the available resources, with the trauma ward often at maximum capacity with delayed discharges due to poor ambulation, post operative complications, and delay in return to enteral feeding. Currently there is no randomized controlled study in the trauma literature, evaluating enhanced recovery after trauma procedures .It is our hypothesis to that implementing an "ERATS" protocol , will lead to a reduction in morbidity, reduction in hospital stay , with a subsequent decrease in costs. This will allow us to implement this as a new standard protocol , and thus change the current practice in stable penetrating trauma patients undergoing explorative laparotomy in our unit, nationally and worldwide.

The Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma (FAST) exam is widely used and accepted as part of advanced trauma life support (ATLS) protocol, but its low sensitivity for identifying solid organ injury in the absence of hemoperitoneum is a significant limitation. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) has the potential to significantly enhance the evaluation of the trauma patient with acute intra-abdominal injury through the use of intravascular microbubbles that allow direct visualization of lacerations to solid organs. European studies have demonstrated that ultrasound contrast markedly improves the sensitivity of ultrasound in detecting solid organ injury, when the exam is performed in the radiology suite. The researchers hypothesize that the bubble-enhanced FAST or BEFAST exam will be more sensitive than traditional FAST for identification of solid organ injury in hemodynamically stable blunt abdominal trauma patients when performed by emergency providers.

This multicenter study aims to evaluate the accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in diagnosing abdominal solid organ injuries in pediatric patients. Up to 130 subjects will complete the study across approximately 5-10 sites in the US, with up to 30 patients in the training phase (3 per site) and 100 patients in the treatment phase of the study. All subjects will have had a CT scan as part of standard of care, confirming at least one solid organ abdominal injury. The study procedure will occur within 48 hours from time of injury. All subjects will have an abdominal ultrasound without contrast, followed by a contrast-enhanced ultrasound using the contrast agent Lumason. Ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound results will be compared to the CT scan results. The CT and ultrasound scans will be read locally and will undergo central review.

We aimed to study the efficacy of Noninvasive Hemoglobin Monitoring by Spectrophotometry in monitoring hemoglobin level in trauma patients for conservative management.