View clinical trials related to Congenital Abnormalities.
Filter by:Background: The human face is critically important for breathing, eating, seeing, and speaking/ communicating, but its most important job may be to look like a human face. Devastating facial deformities often cause affected individuals to avoid human contact and disappear from society. Although current surgical advancements can somewhat restore facial defects, this process often requires many operations and the resulting face only resembles the human face. To date, over 20 face transplants have been performed with highly encouraging functional and aesthetic results, but widespread clinical use has been limited due to the adverse effects of life-long and high-dose immunosuppression needed to prevent graft rejection. Risks include infection, cancer, and metabolic problems, all of which can greatly affect recipients' quality of life, make the procedure riskier, and jeopardize the potential benefits of face transplantation. Study Design: This non-randomized, Phase II clinical trial will document the use of a new immunomodulatory protocol (aka - Pittsburgh Protocol, Starzl Protocol) for establishing face transplantation as a safe and effective reconstructive treatment for devastating injuries/ defects by minimizing maintenance immunosuppression therapy in face transplant patients. This protocol combines lymphocyte depletion with donor bone marrow cell infusion and has enabled graft survival using low doses of a single immunosuppressive drug followed by weaning of treatment. Initially designed for living-related solid organ donation, this regimen has been adapted for use with grafts donated by deceased donors. The investigators propose to perform 15 full or partial human face transplants employing this novel protocol. Specific Aims: 1) To establish face transplantation as a safe and effective reconstructive strategy for the treatment of devastating facial injuries/defects; 2) To reduce the risk of rejection and enable allograft survival while minimizing the requirement for long-term, high-dose, multi-drug immunosuppression. Significance of Research: Face transplantation could help injured individuals recover functionality, self-esteem, and the ability to reintegrate into family and social life as "whole" individuals. This protocol offers the potential for minimizing the morbidity of maintenance immunosuppression, thereby beneficially shifting the risk/benefit ratio of this life-enhancing procedure and enabling a wider clinical application of face transplantation.
The psychosocial development of adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) can be challenged by many issues including family overprotection, impaired peer relationships, delayed progression into independent adulthood, and difficulties with career and future planning. One-third of patients have diagnosable mood or anxiety disorders and the prevalence of depression is 3 times that of the general Canadian population. Unfortunately, most adults with CHD and significant depression or anxiety do not receive mental health treatment. Despite an increasing awareness of the unique psychosocial concerns of this patient population by both health care providers and patients, there have been no interventions targeting psychosocial outcomes in the adult CHD population. Our quantitative and qualitative research suggests that patients themselves are very interested in psychological services that target their distinctive life experiences, are provided in a group setting, and emphasize coping and resilience. The overarching aim of this proposal is to assess the feasibility of a full-scale randomized controlled trial of a group intervention aimed at improving the psychosocial functioning, quality of life, and resilience of adults with CHD.
The objective of the study is to evaluate the association between certain markers in the blood of neonatal brain injury and specific Fetal Heart Rate monitoring findings using the device under study.
Quantify the efficacy and cost of nonoperative treatment modalities used for adult spinal deformity.
AVMs are abnormal collections of blood vessels which can occur in any part of the body including the lungs. These blood vessels are weakened and can rupture anytime causing bleeding which can be massive, leading to life-threatening conditions. Pulmonary AVMs occur in about 40% of patients with HHT. Each patient may have an average of 5 AVMs .Rupture of the AVM can lead to massive bleeding in the lung, stroke and infection of the brain. In order to prevent these complications, patients with HHT are routinely examined for pulmonary AVMs and treatment with embolization is recommended. AVMs have a main blood vessel or artery supplying blood to the collection of blood vessels. The way to treat AVMs is cut off their blood supply through a process called embolization. Embolization is a standard medical procedure which is done to stop or prevent hemorrhage (bleeding) from an AVM. It involves blocking the artery that supplies blood to the AVM by inserting a foreign body, into the blood vessel supplying blood to the AVM. Standard devices used for embolization include coils (made of stainless steel or platinum). These devices usually have a good success rate for blocking the artery that supplies blood to the AVM. However, a few AVMs that are embolized by standard devices may reopen over time. This is called reperfusion and will require repeat embolization procedures. For embolization of pulmonary AVMs at St. Michael's Hospital, the Nester coil is used. In this study, we would like to compare the Nester coil with a new coil device called the Interlock Fibered IDC Occlusion System. Both coils are approved for use in Canada, however the cost of the IDC coil limits its use at this hospital. Compared to the Nester coil, the IDC coils are made so that they can be removed or repositioned if they are not placed correctly. The coil also allows tighter packing which helps prevent reperfusion. This study will compare the success rate of embolization between the Interlock™ Fibered IDC™ Occlusion System (IDC coil) and the Nester coil.
To now, two alternatives for the management of venous vascular malformations are recognized, appropriate to the location, size and patients: sclerosis and surgery. However, sclerosis is effective on symptoms in 80% of cases and excision removes the malformation completely or partially, but it is aggressive and recurrences are common.
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.
The purpose of this study is to look at whether the use of a simple technique before surgery, which involves inflating a blood pressure cuff on the infant's leg, can improve development of language, motor and thinking skills at 12 months of age. Some research has found that a brief shortage of blood supply to an organ (such as a leg) at level that does not cause harm may help the body to tolerate a longer and more severe shortage of blood (for example, during surgery).
The hypothesis of this study is that participation in a formal cardiopulmonary rehabilitation program improves aerobic exercise capacity and quality of life over the medium term for patients with congenital heart disease with reduced exercise capacity. To test this hypothesis, subjects will be randomized to either receive a 12-week cardiopulmonary rehabilitation program or standard of care, with interval testing of aerobic capacity and other physiologic markers improved fitness, as well as assessment of quality of life.
This trial aims to assess the hypothesis that hands-on training of vaginal breech delivery on a pelvic model is significantly better in terms of a technical skills scoring system compared to frontal teaching.