Active clinical trials for "Congenital Abnormalities"

Background: Repeated episodes of bleeding from gastrointestinal vascular malformations refractory to endoscopic or surgical therapy often pose a major therapeutic challenge. Methods: The investigators will perform a randomized, double blind, placebo controlled study of thalidomide as a retreatment therapy for recurrent gastrointestinal bleeding due to vascular malformation. Patients with failure of first course treatment of thalidomide will be randomly grouped, prescribed a second four-month course regimen of 25 mg of thalidomide or placebo orally four times daily. All patients will be monitored for at least one year. The primary end point is defined as the patients whose rebleeds decrease from baseline by ≥ 50% at 12 months and the cessation of bleeding. Rebleeding is defined based on a positive fecal occult blood test (FOBT) (monoclonal colloidal gold color technology) at any visit after treatment. Secondary outcomes include the participants dependent on blood transfusions and changes from baseline in transfused packed red cell units, bleeding episodes, and hemoglobin levels at 12 months. Statistical significance is defined at P < 0.05.

Our research group has shown that almost all children with congenital heart disease (CHD) are vitamin D deficient following heart surgery. This work strongly suggests that the vitamin D intake presently recommended for healthy children, and also given to children with CHD, is inadequate to prevent vitamin D deficiency following surgery. Unfortunately, there have been no studies investigating any other vitamin D dose in children with heart disease. Recently, a higher dose of vitamin D intake has been approved (by the Institute of Medicine and Health Canada) and recent work on healthy children has shown it to be safe. The objective of this study is to determine whether this recently approved higher dose of vitamin D can safely reduce the number of children who are vitamin D deficient following surgery. This dose evaluation study will also evaluate whether it is possible to perform a large study (across Canada) to determine whether vitamin D supplementation can improve outcomes following surgery. It is hypothesized that a daily high dose vitamin D regimen, modeled on the Institute of Medicine daily upper tolerable intake level (UL), will significantly reduce vitamin D deficiency following CHD surgery, when compared with usual intake.

This is a multi-center prospective, single-arm, non-randomized, open label study to assess safety and performance of the Xeltis Pulmonary Valved Conduit in subjects requiring Right Ventricular Outflow Tract correction or reconstruction due to congenital heart malformations.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of repeated doses of etomidate on the adrenocortical synthesis of corticosteroids in patients aged 18 to 65, ASA status I to III scheduled to electroconvulsive therapy every 2 days for 3 to 4 weeks. Anesthesia protocol is standardized with 0.5 mg/kg propofol, 0.3 mg/kg etomidate and 0.5 mg/kg succinylcholine. Blood samples for cortisol dosage are performed immediately before the first session (baseline cortisol), 24 hours after the first session, 24 hours after the third session and 24 hours after the sixth session. All blood samples are performed at 9 and collected in normal tube. sample were analysed using the Electrochimiluminescence ECLIA -Cobas - Roche. The normal value are between 6.2-19.4 µg/dL . Sample analysis was performed by a biochemist blinded to clinical detail.

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of CERC-006 in adults (aged 18-31 years) with active, moderate to severe complex lymphatic malformations.

Stressful and traumatic experiences in childhood (Adverse Childhood Events, or ACEs) have been associated with poor health outcomes that extend into adulthood. When stress is sustained or severe in the absence of an adequate buffer, the stress response can become dysregulated--a state referred to as toxic stress. Some professional organizations have advocated for ACEs screening to be part of routine medical care. To date, however, no ACEs screening tool has been validated for use with children. Intervening early at critical points in the life course has the potential to allow a child to avoid the negative consequences of these adverse events. The proposed study has three overarching aims: (1) Examine the relationship between ACEs, stress biomarkers, and symptoms in children and caregivers over time; (2) Validate an ACEs screening in a pediatric health care setting; and (3) Test whether providing primary care-based preventive interventions for children with or at risk for toxic stress can lead to detectable changes in biomarkers, behavior, or health outcomes for children and/or caregivers.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the effects of the short foot exercises compared to placebo exercises in the foot posture index after a daily period of 4 weeks.

Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is linked to a dysregulation of angiogenesis leading to the formation of arteriovenous malformations (AVM): cutaneo-mucous telangiectasia and visceral shunts. The diagnosis is clinical and based on Curaçao criteria: recurrent epistaxis, cutaneo-mucous telangiectasia, hereditary signs and presence of visceral AVM. Pulmonary AVMs (PAVM) expose patients to many potentially life-threatening complications, such as strokes or brain abscesses due to the right-left shunt created and the lack of filtration barrier of the pulmonary capillary within the AVM. These patients should therefore have regular monitoring throughout their life by a chest CT scanner every 5 to 10 years in the absence of PAVM at the initial scan or more often if PAVMs are present. The management of PAVMs is based on their early detection and embolization in interventional radiology during which is set up within the afferent artery of the PAVM an embolizing agent, the coil. However, the risk of cumulative irradiation exposure from thoracic scanners and repeated thoracic embolizations over time could be reduces by a decrease of X-rays dose. A new thoracic CT imaging protocol validated in the United States in the primary screening of lung cancer, the ultra-low dose protocol, is a CT scanner acquired at an irradiation dose equivalent to that of a frontal chest x-ray and in profile. The dose reduction is of 40 times the usual dose of a chest CT scanner. The lung parenchyma has a high natural contrast on thoracic CT images and there are few adjacent attenuating structures allowing a drastic reduction of dose. However, from this dose, the image quality is degraded with an increase of the image noise. The diagnostic performances have to be confirmed with qualitative and quantitative measurements. Thus, the objective of this study is to compare the sensitivity and the specificity of the current scanner and the ultra-low dose scanner to reduce the exposure to X-rays.

A key factor in determining success of facial plastic plastic surgery is overall patient satisfaction. While a number of patient-reported outcomes tools has been developed, there is still limited research in how physicians can improve patient satisfaction and post-operative outcomes. The goal of this study is to investigate the effect of a mindfulness meditation phone application on rhinoplasty outcomes. This study will also explore whether mindfulness meditation is a feasible adjunct to current pharmacological modalities of postoperative pain control as well as its potential impact on patient satisfaction. These questions will be answered using a randomized controlled trial.

The CT examination on IQon Spectral CT would be a standard of care CT performed as per the clinical indication. The conventional CT images generated by the scanner will be used for clinical purposes as routinely practiced. And therefore, the primary study aim is to assess the impact of IQon Spectral CT scanner and applications on the clinical workflow of the site as well as the diagnostic confidence levels of the physicians reading the CT cases. In addition to the aim mentioned above, the investigators would like to develop recommendations for the clinical application of the spectral images in routine use. Such recommendations could include optimization of scanning protocols, optimization of reconstruction parameters; evaluate the utility of iodine maps and other supported materials.