Active clinical trials for "Heart Defects, Congenital"

The purpose of this research study is to look at the advantages of using a 3D printed heart model for surgical planning in children who have been diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) and clinical heart failure and will undergo a ventricular assist device (VAD) placement. The investigators want to study the correlation of having a 3D printed model with improvement in patient outcomes and compare those with patients who have had a VAD placement without a 3D model.

The goals of this study are: To evaluate the neuroprotective effect of nitric oxide by measuring glial fibrillary acid protein (GFAP) before and after surgery. GFAP will be analyzed via an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. Patients will also be monitored post-operatively for delirium in the intensive care unit (ICU). To evaluate the renal protective effect of nitric oxide by measuring neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) before and after surgery. NGAL will also be analyzed via an ELISA kit. Patient creatinine will be monitored post-operatively. To evaluate effect of nitric oxide on other ICU outcomes (invasive mechanical ventilation, days to extubation, ICU and hospital length of stay, and blood product administration).

Rares diseases are a heterogeneous group of conditions which need important tools for diagnosis. The use of high-throughput sequencing is able to diagnose half of the patients. For the other part it is impossible to conclude due to the presence of variants of unknown significance (VOUS). Functional analysis are needed to bring strong argument to reclassify variants as pathogenic or benign. The main objective is to evaluate the diagnosis yield of this strategy.

Aim: to evaluate the effect of muscle strengthening exercise training in adults with Fontan circulation compared to healthy controls. Hypothesis: adults with Fontan circulation have a relatively lower effect of muscle strengthening exercise training compared to healthy controls.

This is a multi-center prospective, single-arm, non-randomized, pivotal study that will continue to access the feasibility of the Xeltis Bioabsorbable Pulmonary Valved Conduit in subjects requiring right ventricular outflow tract correction or reconstruction due to congenital heart malformations.

The proposed study aims to determine the feasibility of the procedures for a future full randomized controlled trial (RCT), which will test the efficacy of a parent-child yoga intervention in reducing attention deficits in children with congenital heart disease (CHD). Specific aims of this single-blind, two-arm, two-center feasibility trial are to evaluate recruitment rates and capacity, withdrawal and dropout rates, adherence to the intervention, acceptability of the randomization process by families, variation in delivery of the intervention between yoga instructors, and standard deviation of main outcomes of the future RCT in order to determine its appropriate sample size. This feasibility study will lead to the first ever RCT to test the efficacy of an intervention strategy for reducing attention deficits in children with CHD. Ultimately, the implementation of this parent-child yoga program will lead to better long-term academic and psychosocial functioning and quality of life for these children and their family.

To examine if adding educational digital video disk to routine education can reduce parental uncertainty and anxiety more if their children undergo congenital heart disease catheterization and when catheterization or post- catheterization complications occur. We want to know, compared to only routine education, if adding digital video disk could decrease parental uncertainty or anxiety more or not.

Approximately 1 in 10 teenagers lives with a chronic health condition that will require ongoing care as they enter adulthood. Birth defects of the heart, also known as congenital heart disease (CHD) are more common than any other type of birth defect and affect about 1 in 100 children, with most surviving to adulthood. However, most teenagers with CHD have little knowledge about their heart and lack confidence in talking with doctors and nurses about their health. These are essential skills when entering the adult-oriented health care system after graduating from pediatric care. In the current study proposal our team plans to evaluate the effectiveness of delivering 1-on-1 teaching sessions for adolescents who live in smaller communities and can't easily come to Edmonton for appointments in the heart clinic. Fortunately in Alberta we have a widely available system called Telehealth that allows nurses and teens to meet by private, secure teleconferencing while hundreds of miles away. Telehealth is provided by health clinics around the province. We propose to use Telehealth in adolescents' home communities to provide these teaching sessions for 16-19 year olds with CHD who are soon going to be graduating from pediatric to adult care. Participants who receive a nurse-led teaching session will be compared with a similar number of adolescents who are not offered a teaching session, using a questionnaire that addresses skills related to taking care of their health condition. This questionnaire will be completed on-line (or if preferred by the participant, by letter mail) 1 month and 6 month after entering the study. Deciding which adolescents receive a nurse-led teaching session will be random, i.e. like the flip of a coin. Regardless, all participants will receive access to a website for young people with CHD called iHeartChange.

Positive intra-thoracic pressures induced by mechanical ventilation can negatively impact right heart hemodynamics by restricting systemic venous return and increasing right ventricular afterload. These consequences may be detrimental in patients with a restrictive right ventricular physiology and in patients with single ventricle physiology. NAVA (Neurally Adjusted Ventilatory Assist) ventilation decreases intra thoracic pressures compared to conventional ventilation modes. Brain perfusion is both a hemodynamic indicator and a prognostic factor in cardiac postoperative care. Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy (DCS) coupled with Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) is a new technology that allows monitoring, in addition to brain tissue oxygenation, changes in brain blood flow. This physiological study aims to evaluate the impact of NAVA mode ventilation on cerebral and systemic hemodynamics in post-operative cardiac surgery patients with preload dependant right ventricle or with passive venous return to the lungs . This prospective cross-over study will include 30 patients. Once stabilized in intensive care, patients will undergo 2 periods of ventilation in NAVA mode and conventional mode separated by a 30-minute washout period, in a random order. For each period the following information will be collected: changes in cerebral blood flow and cerebral oxygenation, hemodynamic parameters including cardiac output and oxygen transport and ventilatory parameters.

Infants and children with heart conditions require treatment in children's hospitals that are typically located in large cities. This creates challenges for children and families who need to travel long distances to come to appointments. Providing quality care to children with heart disease has further been challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a shift towards decreased in-person contact and an increase in virtual visits, where assessment by doctors and nurses is more limited. This research study will look at how families of children with heart disease access care and how investigators can improve care with virtual technologies. This will involve testing a new home-based virtual care platform that uses Bluetooth technology to connect weight scales, oxygen measuring devices and blood pressure cuffs with a smartphone app, allowing parents to easily use these devices and send accurate data directly to the cardiology team. Investigators will obtain feedback from families, patients, and healthcare providers about how this helped or did not help them, and adjust the technology as needed to make it better.