There are about 6915 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Austria. The country of the clinical trial is determined by the location of where the clinical research is being studied. Most studies are often held in multiple locations & countries.
Background: More than 10% of the adult population in Styria, a federal state in the south of Austria, is allotted to a stationary stay at a health resort each year. In practice approximately 50.000 adults receive these stays that are financed from the health insurance companies and that last up to 3 weeks. The target group for theses stays is the general population aged between 30 and 65 years that shows minor health deficits like back pain or risk factors for cardio-metabolic diseases. The treatment during the stays consists of exercise, nutritional and psychological interventions. Thus the increase of physical activity is an important goal that is focussed during the stationary stay. Because of the absence of regional facilities that are linked to the resorts and that provide accesses to standardised regional programmes sustainability is questionable. Methods/Design: This prospective controlled open label study compares two study groups. After a stationary stay at a health resort patient are allocated to a standardised, regional sports-club based exercise programme or to another group, where only written hand-outs are provided. The primary outcome is the weekly level of health enhancing physical activity which is objectively measured with an accelerometer and an activity log-book. Additionally, social determinants are requested, fitness and anthropometric measurements are done at baseline until 12 months. Beside the changes in measurable parameters, processes are evaluated accurately. Consequently the gateway - function of the health resort is analysed. Discussion: The structured cooperation between the health sector, where health resorts informing and assigning patients to regional sports-clubs and the sports sector potentially provides a wide network of standardised programmes. Within this study we aim to evaluate the sustainability of stationary stays and a continuing regional standardised exercise programme.
Benzalkonium chloride (BAC) is a preservative, which is a component of more than 70% of topical ophthalmic drugs. Although BAC is a preservative with an excellent antibacterial spectrum, it has also been shown to induce toxic effects to the ocular surface. Several studies have indicated that BAC may also have altering effects on the bacterial flora of the conjunctiva. Since dry eye syndrome (DES) is a very common and multifactorial disease of the ocular surface and the tear fluid resulting in tear film instability, inflammation of the ocular surface, symptoms of discomfort and visual impairment, there are many different preserved as well as preservative-free ophthalmic preparations of ocular lubricants for the treatment of DES. Unpublished data from our department shows differences between artificial tears for the treatment of DES with and without BAC in bacterial culture. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of artificial tear eyedrops with and without BAC on the conjunctival bacterial flora. For this 40 patients with mild or moderate dry eye syndrome with no use of artificial tears in the 4 weeks preceding the study will be recruited and treated either with the preservative-free "Prosicca sine" eyedrops or the BAC containing "Prosicca" eyedrops for one month. Conjunctival samples will be collected of one eye of each patient before and after the 1-month treatment period to compare the conjunctival bacterial flora of the two treatment groups.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe and irreversible visual loss and classified blindness in the elderly throughout Europe and the US. Among these patients, about 6%-8% are afflicted with the advanced stages of AMD, which are responsible for the most severe visual loss. There is now convincing evidence that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a major trigger for the formation of pathological choroidal vessels, responsible for the development of the neovascular form of AMD. Today, the gold standard for vascular imaging of the retina and diagnosis of CNV is angiography using fluorescein (FLA) or indocyanine green (ICG), which involves injection of the dye into a vein of the arm. In the recent years tremendous enhancements in the field of optical coherence tomography have been achieved. These developments made it possible to visualize the retinal vasculature in a full depth manner without the application of an intravenous marker. The proposed study tests the hypothesis that visualisation of CNV lesion size with non-invasive OCT angiography is not inferior to FLA/ICG angiography in treatment naïve and previously treated AMD patients.
Achalasia is an esophageal motility disorder, which leads to clinical symptoms such as dysphagia, regurgitation, chest pain and consecutive weight loss. Although conventional treatment such as laparoscopic Heller myotomy (LHM) and balloon dilatation (BD) can provide sufficient symptom relief in many patients, both interventions have their individual drawbacks. Additionally, treatment after failed LHM or BD can be challenging and in few might even lead to esophagectomy. Per oral endoscopic myotomy (POEM) and prolonged dilatation (PRD) are two novel endoscopically performed therapeutic options for achalasia and other esophageal motility disorders. Both not only appear to provide good results, when performed as initial treatment but also might be an excellent option after e.g failed LHM. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the long-term efficacy of four different treatment options, such as POEM, PRD with stent-fixation, PD and conventional LHM for achalasia in an individualized treatment setting.
Advanced airway interventions are common high risk, high stakes events for children in intensive care units (ICU) and emergency departments (ED), with risk for life and health threatening consequences.
In the past it was shown, that medial partial meniscectomy (MPM) leads to an increase of the knee adduction moment (KAM) during walking. Other researches found out that an increase of the KAM is an important factor contributing to degeneration joint disease of the knee (osteoarthritis). Today, medial menicus repair (MMR) is favoured by many knee surgeons, because preserving as much of the meniscus as possible is assumed to delay degenerative joint disease. The investigators hypothesize significant differences in knee adduction moments between patients treated with partial medial meniscectomy vs. patients treated with medial meniscus repair (hypothesis 1; major hypothesis). Additionally, it is hypothesized that: the mentioned groups differ with respect to other kinetic and kinematic key parameters of gait (hypothesis 2) and that the knee adduction moment correlates with the clinical outcome as determined by a typical knee score (hypothesis 3).
This cross-over study will investigate the efficacy and safety of BIMMD and TUDPF in a clinical setting.
A descent of the anterior vaginal wall is the most common form of female pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Although anterior colporrhaphy (AC) is accepted worldwide as a "standard procedure", its exact steps are not well standardized. We developed a small stitch anterior colporrhaphy (SSTAC) in an effort to increase the strength and durability of AC Objectives The aim of this pilot study is to demonstrate the feasibility and complication rate of the SSTAC and to assess the anatomical and functional outcomes after this method of cystocele repair.
Aim of the present investigation is to analyse the amount of muscle trauma in relation to the surgical approach and to the individual postoperative functional recovery. The investigation will compare the MIS (minimally invasive surgery) anterior approach with the MIS anterolateral approach to the hip.
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of needle acupuncture in comparison to a conventional postoperative pain management in terms of reducing pain and pain medication use in an interdisciplinary setting in a controlled, randomized study design after implantation of total knee arthroplasty .