Active clinical trials for "Congenital Abnormalities"

Prematurely born children are at higher risk of cognitive impairments and behavioral disorders than full-term children. There is growing evidence of significant volumetric and shape abnormalities in subcortical structures of premature neonates, which may be associated to negative long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes. The general objective is to look directly at the long-term neurodevelopmental implications of these neonatal subcortical structures abnormalities. Investigators propose to develop biomarkers of prematurity by comparing the morphological and diffusion properties of subcortical structures between preterm, with and without associated brain injuries, and full-term neonates using brain MRI. By combining subcortical morphological and diffusion properties, investigators hypothesize to be able to: (1) delineate specific correlative relationships between structures regionally and differentially affected by normal maturation and different patterns of white matter injury, and (2) improve the specificity of neuroimaging to predict neurodevelopmental outcomes earlier. The specific aims and general methodology are: 1) Build a new toolbox for neonatal subcortical structures analyses that combine a group lasso-based analysis of significant regions of shape changes, a structural correlation network analysis, a neonatal tractography, and tensor-based analysis on tracts; 2) Ascertain biomarkers of prematurity in neonates with different patterns of abnormalities using correlational and connectivity analysis within and between structures features; 3) Assess the predictive potential of subcortical imaging on neurodevelopmental outcomes by correlating neonatal imaging results with long-term neurodevelopmental scores at 9 and 18 months, and 6-8 years, follow-up. In each of these aims, investigators will use advanced neuroimaging analysis developed by their group and collaborator, including multivariate tensor-based morphometry and multivariate tract-based analysis. This application will provide the first complete subcortical network analysis in both term and preterm neonates. In the first study of its kind for prematurity, investigators will use sparse and multi-task learning to determine which of the biomarkers of prematurity at birth are the best predictors of long-term outcome. Once implemented, these methods will be available to compare subcortical structures for other pathologies in newborns and children.

The purpose of this pilot study is to evaluate the disease-modifying efficacy of lovastatin in patients with brain arteriovenous malformation.

The present study was designed to evaluate bowel function in preschool and early childhood in a large number of patients with anorectal Malformation and to identify the associated risk factors for bowel dysfunction.

3D modeling associated with the tracking of nerve fibers meets the needs of preoperative planning for tumors and cervico-facial congenital malformations. Indeed, these lesions are closely related to the cranial nerves and in particular nerve V (infratemporal fossa), nerve VII (temporal bone, parotido-masseter region), nerves IX, X, XI, XII and the chain cervical sympathetic (infratemporal and cervical regions). The development of a model of this region will therefore improve the surgical management of these children.

The purpose of this study is to get a better understanding of the clinical implications (including reproductive problems and obstetric complications), appropriate diagnostic tools and correct surgical treatment of Mullerian anomalies.

Cerebral Arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are abnormal tangles which are usually believed congenital. AVM can cause different symptoms depending on where it is located, but the most common symptoms are intracranial hemorrhage and seizure. Outcomes of AVM patients can be very different due to factors like the location of lesion, age, sex etc. Generally, more early the intervention was taken, the risk of adverse events would be lower. But the selection of surgical timing for pediatric AVM patients is hard to judge, due to children's cerebral vessels angioarchitecture can be still developing with their age. Some previous studies indicated that there is no difference in intervention outcomes between pediatric and adult AVM patients, so pediatric patients should undergo more aggressive intervention. DOPA study aims to compare the clinical intervention outcomes of both pediatric and adult patients with eloquent region cerebral arteriovenous malformations, helping to determine the treatment strategy.

The objective of this study is the development, implementation and management of a registry of patient data that captures clinically meaningful, real-world, data on the diagnosis, nature, course of infection, treatment(s) and outcomes in patients with complex disease globally.

The "North Carolina Clinical Genomic Evaluation by Next-gen Exome Sequencing, 2 (NCGENES 2)" study is part of a larger consortium project investigating the clinical utility, or net benefit of an intervention on patient and family well-being as well as diagnostic efficacy, management planning, and medical outcomes. A clinical trial will be implemented to compare (1) first-line exome sequencing to usual care and (2) participant pre-visit preparation to no pre-visit preparation. The study will use a randomized controlled design, with 2x2 factorial design, coupled with patient-reported outcomes and comprehensive clinical data collection addressing key outcomes, to determine the net impact of diagnostic results and secondary findings.

The National Rare Diseases plans, the ongoing MALFPULM PHRC and thoracoscopic advents in children, are remarkable improvements in understanding and managing lung malformations. The resection of these malformations is now proposed in most cases to avoid infections which are difficult to treat and to diagnose or to avoid exceptional tumors. Procedures are ideally performed around the age of 5-6 months to take advantage of the lung growth that continues during the first two years of life. The surgical strategies depend of the malformation size, the tumor risk and surgeon choice: conservative surgery with removal of part of the lobe may be preferred over complete resection of the concerned lobe. If possible, thoracoscopic resection is carried out. The open thoracotomy is more painful and leads to complications such as thoracic deformities, larger scars, blood loss. However, in infants the thoracoscopic work space is small, lung exclusion is challenging and the anatomy (normal or malformative) is difficult to understand in space. The rate of thoracoscopy without conversion to thoracotomy ranges from 98% in one American center with a more radical approach , to 48% in a national cohort. Pulmonary exclusion failure, complexity and size of malformations and intra-operative complications are factors of conversion to thoracotomy . These factors can lead surgeons to perform thoracotomy without attempting thoracoscopy. 3D printing is a thriving research field for its educational or therapeutic potential optimization of management, prosthesis, and organ replacement. 3D printing is particularly adapted to pediatrics, which suffers from the rarity of its pathologies and a large spectrum of size and morphology prohibiting the mass production of models. 3D printing models of complex pulmonary pathologies will allowed for a better anesthetic and surgical approach. The modeling of bronchial, vascular and even parenchymatous anatomy permits a better understanding of the anatomical particularities of each patient. This, in turn, avoids the intra-operative conversions to thoracotomy with a direct benefit for the patient.

An anomalous coronary artery from the opposite sinus of Valsalva (ACAOS) represents a congenital disorder with an anomalous location and/or course of the coronary vessel. The prevalence of ACAOS in the general population is around 1 % and they are mostly clinically insignificant and remain often undetected. However, some variants of ACAOS are associated with adverse cardiac events. The possible presence of an interarterial/intramural course is the primary cause for an oval proximal vessel shape and/or proximal vessel narrowing, which may lead under stress conditions to a "dynamic compression" of the vessel (compared to "fixed" stenosis in coronary artery disease). To mimic these conditions, dobutamine and volume challenge is used to invasively measure fractional flow reserve (FFR) during coronary angiography and is seen as the gold standard in assessing the hemodynamic relevance of ACAOS. We established a specialized interdisciplinary clinic for coronary artery anomalies including imaging specialists, invasive cardiologists and congenital heart disease surgeons as correct downstream testing and treatment decision is highly challenging in these patients. Thus, systematic collecting of all available diagnostic methods (invasive and non-invasive) is required to assess the optimal diagnostic procedure and treatment for these patients. Coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) is the method of choice to characterize the exact anatomy of ACAOS. However, how functional invasive FFR is associated with anatomical CCTA findings is unknown. Further, diagnostic accuracy of a novel independent research algorithm with computational fluid dynamics (ctFFR) as well as functional imaging (i.e. stress single photon emission computed tomography) in this specific setting is unknown. The presented project will help to understand the pathophysiology of CAAs with particular focus on ACAOS-IC and improve risk stratification based on non-invasive imaging.