View clinical trials related to Infection.
Filter by:The military is subject to traumatic wounds of various types and severity. Such wounds are predisposed to infection because they 1) tend to be extensive and deep, 2) may affect areas of normal carriage of potentially pathogenic bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, upper respiratory tract, and the female genital tract, 3) typically produce tissue damage, 4) may introduce foreign bodies, 5) may interfere with local blood supply, 6) tend to produce ischemia, edema and hemorrhage, 7) may be complicated by fractures or burns and 8) may lead to shock and overwhelming of the body's systemic defenses. It will not always be possible in the military setting to cleanse and debride the wound promptly and effectively or to promptly provide surgery in the event of damage to vital structures. In the active military setting, the probability of wound infection following trauma is relatively high. In the absence of rapid identification of infecting flora and provision of information on antimicrobial susceptibility, clinicians must resort to empiric therapy rather than a tailored therapy. There is a tendency to use one of the top available agents that would likely be active against the vast majority of bacteria. This leads to increases in antimicrobial resistance, an important problem. The investigators hypothesize that the use of molecular biology techniques will provide identification of the microorganisms responsible for wound infection more rapidly and accurately. The investigators will evaluate real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technique under this proposal. This procedure can be applied directly to material from the wound without need for first growing the organisms. It can be used to define the total flora of the wound within five hours. The investigators will first develop primers and probes that will detect the various bacteria anticipated in a given wound in a certain location. These primers and probes will be used in real-time PCR for rapid and accurate identification of the wound flora. The information obtained with real-time PCR is quantitative so that one may judge the relative importance of different isolates. The investigators will also use another molecular approach, 16S rRNA gene cloning, and conventional cultures; these will provide further information about the flora of various wounds. Definitive identification of anaerobes can be provided quickly and that, along with information on usual antimicrobial susceptibility patterns, can be life-saving or shorten the course of the infection considerably.
First, we, the researchers, hope to find out the PCT response to heart surgery in children by taking blood before surgery and each day for four days after surgery. These blood draws will help us figure out the typical Procalcitonin (PCT) response, the normal increase in PCT after heart surgery, and when the PCT level returns to baseline. Second, we, the researchers, hope to determine the accuracy of PCT as a marker of infection. Hypothesis Our hypothesis is that Procalcitonin is superior to other currently used markers of infection and will prove to be a clinically useful tool for evaluation of infection in children following cardiac surgery.
Bladder dysfunction occurs at some time in most patients with multiple sclerosis and these patients are prone to have recurrent urinary tract infections. Cranberry has been traditionally used for the treatment and prophylaxis of urinary tract infections but there is no reliable randomized controlled trial demonstrating evidence of cranberry's utility in this disease. The aim of our study is to assess the efficacy and safety of cranberry in the prophylaxis of urinary tract infections in patients with multiple sclerosis with a prospective randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trial.
Prosthetic joint infection is a devastating complication of total joint arthroplasty ultimately leading to the failure of the total joint arthroplasty function and possibly death. Optimal treatment requires the resection of the infected total joint arthroplasty followed by prolonged parenteral antimicrobial therapy. This procedure is followed by reimplantation of a new total joint arthroplasty at a later date. Surgical debridement and retention of the infected total joint arthroplasty offers a more conservative surgical approach and has been proven to be cost-effective in selected groups of patients. Traditional medical therapy for staphylococcal infection would require an initial parenteral antimicrobial followed by chronic oral non-rifampin containing antimicrobial suppression regimen for the life of the total joint arthroplasty. With this strategy the success rate is close to 30%. Recently, several prospective studies of patients with THA, TKA and fracture fixation device infections conducted in Europe showed that the success rate with a 3-6 month course of a quinolone-rifampin combination is effective in 70% to 100% of cases. The proposed study will be a prospective open label observational cohort that will evaluate the outcome of Patients with S. aureus PJI treated with a medical regimen that includes oral levofloxacin- rifampin and debridement and retention of components. This medical regimen was approved for use by the Orthopedic Infectious Diseases focus group, Mayo Clinic, Rochester. 15 patients will be enrolled over a one-year period and followed up to minimum of 1 additional year. The outcome of this group will be compared to a historical group that is treated with traditional therapy.
Acute respiratory tract infections are among the most common problems of childhood, particularly among infants and children younger than 3 years, and account for most antibiotic prescriptions to children. Most of these infections are self-limited and do not require medical intervention; however, the symptoms overlap significantly with those of severe viral or bacterial infections. At the hospital Emergency Department (ED), medical assessment, prescription of antibiotics (unnecessarily if the infection is viral), and a series of investigations (e.g., blood work, X-rays) often take place before a decision on patient management and possible hospital admission can be made. Such procedures lead to intense use of human health resources (nursing, laboratory and radiology staff) and hospital facilities. The literature suggests that a prompt single viral diagnosis improves decision-making. To our knowledge, no-one has performed a controlled trial to examine the impact of a rapid, multi-viral detection test like VIRAP, or the impact of the timing of such a test, on management of children with flu-like illnesses in the ED. Our objective is to determine if use of our new viral detection program, VIRAP, for rapid testing for viral respiratory infections right after triage will improve patient management and resource use in the ED. We will test the hypothesis that availability of VIRAP at triage to support rapid diagnosis of viral infection in children at BCCH will (i) reduce the waiting time in the ED; (ii) improve decision making regarding diagnostic investigations and specimen collection; and (iii) decrease antibiotic prescriptions. Study completed and manuscript accepted for publication in the Journal of Pediatrics.
The purpose of this study is to collect data on the HIV strains currently circulating among female sex workers (FSWs) and their clients. In addition, this study will identify potential participants for future studies.
The objective of the program is to examine the efficacy of 6 month home micronutrient supplementation in Bedouin and Jewish children on improvements in nutritional status including measures of iron, ferritin, zinc and folic acid, and measures of growth and health parameters i.e.reported and recorded morbidity.
The hypothesis is that an antiviral drug (valacyclovir) will reduce the amount of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in the mouths of university students with infectious mononucleosis (mono) while being a safe drug. Because EBV is the cause of mono, it is expected that reduction of the amount of virus could result in faster recovery from the disease.
The investigators will test the hypotheses that mild hypercapnia and supplemental oxygen reduce wound infection risk in patients undergoing colon resection. The investigators will simultaneously test the hypothesis that low-dose dexamethasone (a common treatment for postoperative nausea and vomiting) does not increase infection risk.
The purpose of this project is to study the pharmacokinetics of a once-daily antiretroviral medication used to treat adolescents and young adults with HIV infection.