View clinical trials related to Abdomen.
Filter by:Abdominal computed tomographic (CT) is an important prognostic tool with regard to the detection of oncological, infectious and other abdominal disorders. The total iodine load (TIL) is regarded as a decisive factor in the opacification of parenchymal structures. The EICAR trial demonstrated that injection with high flow rates of prewarmed contrast media (CM) was safe and patients did not experience any pain, stress of discomfort during injection. Flow rates as high as 8.8 ml/s were injected without any discomfort. All concentrations used (e.g. 240, 300 and 370 mg I/ml) in this study were prewarmed. According to the recent recommendations (ESUR guidelines 10.0) it should be considered to warm iodine-based CM before administration. The hypothesis is that although using CM at room temperature (~23°C [~73°F]) might result in lower attenuation of the liver parenchyma than would be achieved using CM pre-warmed to body temperature, diagnostic image quality, patient safety and comfort will not be compromised by not pre-warming CM in this setting. According to the guidelines, it is regarded as best clinical practice to pre-warm CM. Surprisingly, these recommendations are merely based on a hypothetical assumption. In the literature, there are no studies evaluating this topic and it has never been clearly shown to result in a better patient comfort. For this reason, many clinics do not pre-warm their CM in daily clinical routine. Only one study evaluated subjective comfort in hysterosalpingography (HSG), in which CM is injected in to the cavity of the uterus. This study found that prewarmed CM alleviates the pain and decreased the incidence of vasovagal episodes during HSG. To the best of our knowledge, no study showed that prewarmed CM in CT resulted in higher patient comfort, in comparison to CM at room temperature (20° C). Up till now, all CM in the department is prewarmed. In case this study does not show a difference in patient comfort, prewarming the CM can be stopped, resulting in a considerable simplified workflow. The hypothesis is that usage of CM at room temperature (20° C) might result in a decreased level of patient comfort in abdominal CT, in comparison to pre-heated (37° C) CM, with no significant difference in diagnostic attenuation of the liver parenchyma between groups.
Background: Complications impact physical and psychological recovery and are associated with financial cost. General physical function has not been studied in relation to the development of surgical complications in this cohort. Objective: Evaluate the physical function performance differences between those who develop complications and those who do not and determine their impact on recovery. Design: Observational Setting: The pre-operative assessment unit in the University Hospital Limerick. Patients: Forty-nine participants who were planned to undergo abdominal surgery were recruited & 43 completed the study. Main outcome measure: Demographics, physical function, lung function, surgical parameters, complications and recovery data was collected.