All clinical trials

Study Objective is to correlate the results of preoperative platelet mapping derived from modified TEG with clinically significant postoperative bleeding and consumption of blood products.

Trauma patients are at risk for serious head trauma. The consequences of serious head trauma are often life altering. Currently, the only method available to rapidly assess the severity of head injury and need for neurosurgical intervention is the CT scan. This time consuming test requires transportation of a potentially unstable patient to the CT scanner. The investigators goal in traumatic brain injury is to identify early those patients who may require neurosurgical intervention. Brain swelling (elevated intracranial pressure) is transmitted to the eye and this can be measured with ultrasound. The investigators hypothesis is that this test will rule out significant elevations in intracranial pressure and perform as well as CT scan in doing this. The investigators study aims to demonstrate that ultrasound of the optic nerve is as good as CT scan in ruling out clinically significant elevations in pressure within the brain. After consent has been obtained, any trauma patient who has an indication to undergo CT scan of the brain will also undergo ultrasound of the eye. A radiologist will then review the CT scans to determine if signs of elevated intracranial pressure are present. The investigators hope to demonstrate that a bedside ultrasound performed in the trauma suite is reliable for ruling out the possibility of elevated intracranial pressure. **Update August 2009** Currently, deferred consent has been obtained from our REB allowing us to defer consent for this intervention of minimal risk. As well, REB has also approved phone consent in the interim.

Retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness measurement on the parapapillary atrophy is incorrect. Because a new spectral domain OCT, the Cirrus HD OCT, uses a movable circle to analyze the RNFL thickness, we may suggest a new analysis strategy for the parapapillary atrophy.

Ankylosing spondylitis (AS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) are the most common rheumatic diseases dealt with rheumatologists in Taiwan. In previous studies, the 3 diseases all have broad impacts on health-related quality of life of patients and drive enormous economic burden on patients and society. The objective of this study is to compare health-related quality of life and disease-related costs between patients with the 3 different diseases. We will invite at least 100 patients with AS, RA or SLE respectively who are regularly followed in the outpatient clinic of the Division of Rheumatology at Taichung Veterans General Hospital (VGHTC) to participate in the study. Patients who have cognitive impairment, who are older than 65 years old or younger than 18 years old, who have overlapping syndrome of any 2 of the 3 rheumatic diseases (eg. RA overlapping with SLE) or who have visited rheumatologists in the outpatient clinics at VGHTC for less than 4 times in 2008 will be excluded. Patients who agree to take part will attend a comprehensive clinical examination in the outpatient department. Patients will complete a questionaire including demographic and disease characteristics, and health-related quality of life at the time of survey. The questionaires about disease-related costs will be completed once per quarter throughout 2009. The four questionaires about costs will be given at the time of initial survey and will be returned by returned by mail or in the following outpatient clinics visits every 3 months in 2009. The result of this study will help patients to realize their own health-related quality of life and disease-related costs and help government in Taiwan to realize the socioeconomic burden of the 3 common rheumatic diseases and to allocate health care resources more properly in the future.

Abdominal donor-site flaps, including the transverse rectus abdominis musculocutaneous (TRAM) and deep inferior epigastric artery perforator flaps(DIEP), are standard in autologous breast reconstruction. With significant variation in the vascular anatomy of the abdominal wall, preoperative imaging is essential for preoperative planning and reducing intraoperative error. The quest continues for optimal preoperative assessment. Computed tomographic angiography has recently been proposed as a noninvasive modality for this purpose. It provides the location of the perforator vessels, diameter and anatomic course in regards to the rectus muscle. In this study we will perform preoperative lower abdominal computed tomographic angiography in DIEP flap breast reconstruction patients.

Mucosal inflammation in patients with UC is the result of immunosuppression disturbance because decreasing number of regulatory T ly and activation IL 17

Premature Ovarian Failure (POF), syndrome observed in young woman, present consequences on hormonal and leads at definitive infertility. It's a rare and complex syndrome and for this reason, we propose to initiate a collaborative team network to understand better his genetic and physiopathology. We are going to realize a global study of this syndrome with clinical and fundamentals approaches. We wish that this project allows us to understand better the physiopathology of this rare disease. Finally, POF responsible genes identification is the base for future development of therapeutics approaches.

24 hour Holter monitoring (24HM) is commonly used to assess cardiac rhythm after surgical therapy of atrial fibrillation. This "snapshot" rhythm documentation leaves a large diagnostic window of non recorded atrial arrhythmias and as such a large amount of uncertainty in follow-up result assessment. To improve accuracy of rhythm surveillance thus gaining a more "real-life" scenario of post surgical ablation therapy cardiac rhythm a new insertable cardiac rhythm monitor device (Reveal® XT 9525, Medtronic Inc., Minneapolis, MN, USA) with full observational continuous heart rhythm documentation is implanted. In order to verify different follow-up strategies after surgical atrial fibrillation therapy, a comparison of different follow-up scenarios (symptoms, different cardiac documentation devices i.e. ECG and 24 hour Holter monitor, at different follow-up time points) is performed intraindividually. Thus the reliability of these devices and follow-up strategies to define success after ablation therapy is evaluated.

The goal of this research study is to demonstrate that Cardiac Perfusion MRI with Vasomotor Stress may serve as a non-invasive and less risky imaging technique for detecting non-obstructive perfusion deficits and/or abnormalities in myocardial blood flow (MBF) in patients with endothelial dysfunction. This is a controlled study, which will enroll approximately 60 subjects (30 diabetics and 30 non-diabetics to serve as healthy controls), and will include male and non-pregnant females, between the ages 18-50 years. All eligible participants will sign an informed consent and will complete a Lifestyle Questionnaire. They will undergo blood work which includes: 2-hour Oral Glucose Tolerance Test and Fasting Labs for Glucose, Insulin, C-Peptide, HbA1c, Creatinine, and Lipid Panel. Urine Albumin to Creatinine ratio for microalbuminuria. Serum inflammatory markers: E-selectin, homocysteine, ADMA, VCAM, IL-6, TNFalpha, hs-CRP and PAI-1. After blood work, all participants will undergo cardiac MR perfusion imaging procedure with Cold Pressor Test and Adenosine Stress Test.

Hypothesis: There is no difference between pentacam scheimpflug system and locs3 in grading of cataract. Major aims: research the efficiency of pentacam scheimpflug system in lens density measurment. To compare the pentacam with the locs3 in grading of cataract.