Active clinical trials for "Congenital Abnormalities"

The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of different phlebotonic drugs in children and to assess patient satisfaction after treatment.

The purpose of this study is to understand how changes to breathing patterns in the chest affect blood flow to the heart from the inferior vena cava in the abdomen. Ultrasound of the upper abdomen will be used to visualize changes in breathing patterns in the chest and blood flow in the abdomen.

This project seeks to develop a standardized technique for simultaneous capturing bi-planar images of patients against a standard background with a grid that can be used later for the quantitative determination of global balance and thoracic symmetry. We hypothesize that patients who are successfully managed with surgery will demonstrate an improvement in global balance and thoracic symmetry that can be accurately measured. This measurement station will be specifically developed to provide a standardized, reproducible means to compare clinical assessments of surgical and non-surgical outcomes, and establish normative data for comparison. This standardized tool can be established at multiple centers for use in multicenter trials.

Examination of the fetal brain at autopsy is technically challenging because of marked fragility of the brain tissue. Studies have found postmortem fetal MR to be particularly useful in examining gross structural abnormalities in fetal brain and spine. We have recently included postmortem MR as part of the radiological studies for fetal autopsy workup. Using the same MR data, the development of normal layering of the brain, also called laminar organization, can also be assessed. This laminar organization of the brain is often disturbed in congenital malformations. Our aim is to study the disturbance in laminar organization of the postmortem brain with MR, using structural MR and a type of MR sequence called diffusion tensor imaging, which is well suited for assessing the organization of the developing brain. The postmortem MR findings will be compared with gold standard of histopathology. This will help us understand the abnormal development of gray and white matter in brain malformations. Knowledge gained from studying the abnormal laminar organization in brain malformations will serve as a reference for future studies of fetal brain malformations in-utero using MRI.

To quantify potential short- and long-term benefits of robotically-guided minimally invasive (MIS) or open-approach spine surgery in adult patients undergoing multi-level spinal instrumentation surgery, in comparison to image- or navigation-guided instrumentation in a matching cohort of control patients, performed using a freehand technique, both in MIS and open approaches.

There is a robust body of research suggesting that the use of pre-surgical orthopedic devices prior to definitive cleft lip/nose repair results in significant improvement of facial aesthetics with long term follow up. However, in recent surveys of the cleft centers in the US, only 30% of cleft centers offer PSIOs, and only 13% routinely report its use. Accordingly, thirty percent of centers utilize a two-stage cleft lip/nose repair in the centers' algorithm (1st: lip adhesion; 2nd: final lip repair). The major drawback to a two-stage cleft procedure is the administration of two general anesthetics to an infant before the age of one year. There is a growing amount of evidence that multiple anesthetic experiences before a certain age could affect brain development. It is difficult to make inferences as to why clinicians are not utilizing surgical aids to decrease the size of the cleft width, but even when PSIO is offered, caregivers experience additional, potentially prohibitive challenges. In one study, caregivers traveled an average of 70 miles to visit the nearest cleft center offering pre-surgical orthopedic devices. As these devices are created by hand every 1-2 weeks after seeing the child in clinic, parents are required to travel to clinic multiple times per month. Not surprisingly, infants who were first-born and those who did not have other siblings were more likely to receive pre-surgical orthopedic treatment than infants who were residing with other siblings. Given the benefits of PSIOs and the barriers both to healthcare systems and patients' families associated with PSIOs in its current form, a new form of pre-surgical clinical management is needed. Objectives: Evaluate JHH's current clinical performance in addressing unilateral cleft lip and nasal deformity. Elucidate the difference in preoperative cleft size and in surgical management/outcomes for patients who received PSIOs through 3D-printed devices. Using the above maxillofacial growth data with and without PSIOs, the investigators aim to create an algorithm to predict maxillofacial growth for each individual patient to design pre-sequenced custom PSIO devices.

This protocol provides expanded access to bone marrow transplants for children who lack a histocompatible (tissue matched) stem cell or bone marrow donor when an alternative donor (unrelated donor or half-matched related donor) is available to donate. In this procedure, some of the blood forming cells (the stem cells) are collected from the blood of a partially human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matched (haploidentical) donor and are transplanted into the patient (the recipient) after administration of a "conditioning regimen". A conditioning regimen consists of chemotherapy and sometimes radiation to the entire body (total body irradiation, or TBI), which is meant to destroy the cancer cells and suppress the recipient's immune system to allow the transplanted cells to take (grow). A major problem after a transplant from an alternative donor is increased risk of Graft-versus-Host Disease (GVHD), which occurs when donor T cells (white blood cells that are involved with the body's immune response) attack other tissues or organs like the skin, liver and intestines of the transplant recipient. In this study, stem cells that are obtained from a partially-matched donor will be highly purified using the investigational CliniMACS® stem cell selection device in an effort to achieve specific T cell target values. The primary aim of the study is to help improve overall survival with haploidentical stem cell transplant in a high risk patient population by limiting the complication of GVHD.

Spinal arteriovenous fistulas (AVFs) and arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are complex neurosurgical lesions that are very challenging to manage. Spinal vascular malformations account for 3%-4% of all intradural spinal cord mass lesions. Over the last few decades our understanding of these lesions has dramatically increased thanks to neuroimaging technology (e.g. spinal angiography and indocyanine green angiography). Various treatment modalities including conservative observation, endovascular embolization, microsurgical resection, radiation therapy, and combined therapies have been reported. The treatment for these AVMs and AVFs depends on their location, the type of malformation, the area of the spine involved, and the condition of the patient at the time of treatment. Due to the rarity of these spinal vascular lesions, reports of their management and outcomes have been limited to small series and case reports. And the rates of obliteration and outcomes are not satisfactory, especially the spinal AVMs. Spinal vascular lesions are rare but represent a formidable challenge for the treating neurosurgeon.The purpose of this study is to establish multimodality treatment mode and evaluate the anatomical cure rate and functional preservation rate.

Corpus callosum malformation (CCM) is the most frequently detected cerebral defect diagnosed in the prenatal setting. The most common CCM is corpus callosum agenesis (CCA) which is found in 2 to 3% of patients presenting with intellectual disability. When CCM is diagnosed, the risk of chromosomal disorder is estimated to be 16%, be it aneuploidy such as trisomy 18, trisomy 13 or mosaic trisomy 8, or a chromosome structure anomaly, copy number variation or more complex rearrangement In France, since 2013 oligoarray-based comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) analysis is performed in the prenatal period for most malformations after approval by a multidisciplinary prenatal diagnosis ethics committee (Centre Pluridisciplinaire de Diagnostic Prénatal, CPDPN) . However, to date only a few studies have been published which report recurrent Copy Number Variations (CNV) associated with CCM and estimate the risk for a chromosomal disorder, thus making counseling difficult in this context of prenatal diagnosis.

The Environmental Factors and Embryonic Development Project was set up to investigate environmental exposures and behavioral factors responsible for embryonic dysplasia and gestational complications in pregnant women.