View clinical trials related to Brain Tumor.
Filter by:In the setting of progressive or recurrent cancer, adolescent and young adult (AYA) patients, parents, and healthcare providers (HCP) are faced with multiple therapeutic options. Each treatment option has a unique risk/benefit ratio, resulting in a need to trade one desirable outcome for another or accept acute toxicities and treatment-related morbidity to increase the chance of survival. Adding to the complexity of this decision, stake holders characterize and value the risk/benefit ratios differently. This study seeks to learn what things are important to an adolescent or young adult with cancer, parents, and health care providers when making decisions about their treatment choices. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: To quantify the relative importance of various factors believed to be important to adolescent and young adult patients with cancer, parents, and health care providers when choosing between treatment options in the hypothetical situation of progressive or refractory disease.
Despite theoretical benefits of intravenous agents, volatile agents remain popular. In a study comparing desflurane, isoflurane, and sevoflurane in a porcine model of intracranial hypertension, at equipotent doses and normocapnia, cerebral blood flow (CBF) and intra-cranial pressure (ICP) were least with sevoflurane. Propofol is the most commonly used intravenous anesthetic. It has many theoretical advantages by reducing cerebral blood volume (CBV) and ICP and preserving both autoregulation and vascular reactivity. Neurosurgical patients anaesthetized with propofol were found to have lower ICP and higher CPP than those anaesthetized with isoflurane or sevoflurane. The well known pharmacodynamic advantages of intravenous anesthetics may give this group of drugs superior cerebral effects when compared with inhalation anesthetics.
This study evaluates the use of fentanyl during craniotomy in two groups of brain tumor patients. The control group will receive standard general anesthesia with the use of fentanyl for intraoperative pain control and the study group will receive scalp nerve block with 0.5% levobupivacaine (local anesthetic) and also fentanyl for intraoperative pain control. The scalp nerve block might reduce the dose of fentanyl and promote faster emergence from general anesthesia.
RATIONALE: Placing a tumor antigen chimeric receptor that has been created in the laboratory into patient autologous or donor-derived T cells may make the body build immune response to kill cancer cells. PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying genetically engineered lymphocyte therapy in treating patients with Relapsed and/or Chemotherapy Refractory Advanced Malignancies.
The purpose of this study is to test the efficacy of a clinic-based intervention designed to reduce illness uncertainty for parents of children who have been recently diagnosed with cancer.
Topotecan is an FDA-approved drug when given by intravenous infection. The purpose of this study is to determine if treatment with topotecan by an alternative method, direct delivery into the part of the brain where the tumor has spread, is safe and well tolerated. The Cleveland Multiport Catheter is a new, investigational device that will be used to deliver topotecan into tumor-infiltrated brain. A second purpose of this study is to determine whether the Cleveland Multiport Catheter can be used effectively and safely to deliver topotecan into tumor-infiltrated brain. This study will also examine how tumors responds to treatment with topotecan. This study will also look at the way topotecan is injected into tumors-infiltrated brain. A small amount of contrast dye (called gadolinium DTPA) will be added to topotecan before it is injected. Pictures will be taken of the brain with an MRI machine. This will allow the investigators to see where in the tumor-infiltrated brain the topotecan has been injected. This study will collect medical information before, during, and after treatment in order to better understand hot to make this type of procedure accessible to patients.
Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy (LITT) is a minimally invasive surgical technique that allows for biopsy and thermal ablation of brain tumors. Pediatric patients with brain tumors who are eligible and enroll in the trial will undergo LITT at the time of diagnosis or at the time of recurrence/progression rather than undergo an open craniotomy and tumor resection/biopsy. LITT will include a stereotactic biopsy followed by thermal ablation of the tumor. This study will monitor the safety and efficacy of LITT for the treatment of pediatric brain tumors.
Primary brain tumors are highly associated with neurocognitive deficit and poor quality of life. There are number of studies indicating that brain tumors and their treatment modalities are often related to cognitive dysfunction. Apart from primary brain lesions, deficit can also occur because of Surgery, Radiotherapy, Chemotherapy, Antiepileptic and Corticosteroid treatment.Anaesthesia can also add to cognitive deficit in these patients. According to Ali et al. propofol provides better cognition scores compared to sevoflurane than isoflurane. The primary aim of their study was to compare the effects of 3 anesthetic regimens on hemodynamics and recovery characteristics of the patients. However in another study by Magni et al., the authors found that there is no difference in early cognitive function between sevoflurane and propofol. The aim of this prospective, randomized, open-label clinical trial was to compare clinical properties of sevoflurane-fentanyl with propofol-remifentanil anesthesia in patients undergoing supratentorial intracranial surgery. However both these studies evaluated the early cognitive function. The primary endpoint was to compare early postoperative recovery and cognitive functions within the two groups. They also evaluated hemodynamic events, vomiting, shivering, and pain. The literature is scarce on the severity, incidence and effect of anaesthetics on cognition and quality of life of these patients. Since most of the patients of brain tumor cannot be cured with surgery alone, improvement of quality of life and palliative care of the symptoms and cognitive function are important part of the treatment. Now the cognitive function has also been considered as an independent prognostic factor in the survival of patients of brain tumor. Cognitive function can also be related to tumor laterality. Patients with tumors in left hemisphere will have lower scores on verbal tests, whereas tumor in right hemisphere will have lower scores on facial recognition tests. Patients with tumors in the left hemisphere report more difficulty concentrating and those with right-hemisphere lesions,report more tension. Patients with primary brain tumors also experience serious challenges to their quality of life (QOL). These patients may face motor deficits, personality changes, cognitive deficits, aphasia, or visual field defects.
Hematopoietic cell transplantation (BMT), or commonly referred to as blood and marrow transplantation (BMT), is a potentially life-saving therapy for many malignant and non-malignant conditions. Despite advances over the past decade, which have led to improved outcomes, BMT remains an intense treatment modality often requiring prolonged inpatient-based care. While many patients endure the acute complications of the procedure, it is common for BMT patients and their caregivers to experience increased risk of financial and emotional burden, hospital readmission, and health service utilization. This highlights the importance of active involvement of BMT patients in their own health care (self-efficacy). For pediatric BMT patients, parents are the primary caregivers. As such, parental activation on behalf of the child (patient) plays a critical role in effective patient-parent-provider partnerships, which is increasingly recognized as the optimal model for health care delivery, particularly for those facing life-altering medical treatments. It is essential to develop effective strategies to enhance this partnership. Health information technology (IT)-mediated tools offer the potential to overcome constraints in health care delivery limited by provider time, complicated health information, and financial pressures. Significant gaps in knowledge exist on the use of health IT tools using low-cost and well-accepted delivery platforms in routine inpatient care, especially for high-risk or critically ill populations. The investigators hypothesize that a tablet-based tool displaying personal health information could provide a platform to promote caregiver (parent) activation and enhance health communication. In this clinical research study, the investigators will conduct a pilot study of an educational health IT system developed on a tablet (Apple iPad®) that the investigators refer to as a Personalized Engagement Tool (PET) or the "BMT Roadmap." The Apple iPad® was selected as the platform for delivery of the educational intervention given its ergonomic features. The implementation and evaluation of the BMT Roadmap information system in caregivers of children undergoing BMT have been based on the generation of user (caregivers and patients) needs that incorporated well-established user-centered design processes including qualitative and quantitative research methods (published and unpublished data). The assembled investigators represent a strong multidisciplinary team with complementary and integrated expertise who are well-poised to carry out the proposed research. The Protocol or Study Team includes pediatric BMT physicians, Center for Health Communications Research (CHCR) staff, health informaticist, biostatistician, and psychologist. This research study is innovative because it addresses a gap in the literature on the role of health IT in parent activation on behalf of the child in the inpatient setting of a high-risk BMT population. The BMT Roadmap information system provides a robust experimental framework for further testing the utility of other care components that relate to parent activation or participation and for potential adoption in other complex medical conditions. The new knowledge gained herein will thus contribute to the evidence base of how health IT improves health care quality and provide the basis of further study in a full-scale clinical trial.
During neurosurgical resection of brain tumors within brain areas for motor control, it is important to monitor motor function. For this muscle motor evoked potentials are used. Those are elicited by transcranial and direct cortical stimulation. Motor responses are recorded from muscles. In neurosurgical procedures for spinal cord tumors, the same methods are used, but additionally motor activity is recorded from the spinal cord. This is called spinal motor evoked potentials. It is known that the relation between spinal and muscle motor evoked potentials helps to extent the resection of spinal cord tumors. This study implements the spinal motor evoked potential into brain tumor surgery and analyses the relationship between spinal and muscle motor evoked potentials. With this, detection of injury to the brain area for motor control might be discovered earlier and thus tumor resection can be performed safely.