View clinical trials related to Abdominal Injury.
Filter by:Bleeding from intra-abdominal injuries is a leading cause of traumatic deaths in children. Abdominal CT is the reference standard test for diagnosing intra-abdominal injuries. Compelling reasons exist, however, to both aggressively evaluate injured children for intra-abdominal injuries with CT and to limit abdominal CT evaluation to solely those at non-negligible risk. The focused assessment sonography for trauma (FAST) examination can help focus patient evaluation in just this manner by potentially safely decreasing abdominal CT use in low risk children. This research study is a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial to determine whether use of the FAST examination, a bedside abdominal ultrasound, impacts care in 3,194 hemodynamically stable children with blunt abdominal trauma. The overall objectives of this proposal are 1) to determine the efficacy of using the FAST examination during the initial evaluation of children with blunt abdominal trauma, and 2) to identify factors associated with abdominal CT use in children considered very low risk for IAI after a negative FAST examination. The long-term objective of the research is to determine appropriate evaluation strategies to optimize the care of injured children, leading to improved quality of care and a reduction in morbidity and mortality.
Unrecognized abdominal and pelvic injuries can result in catastrophic disability and death. Sporadic reports of "occult" injuries have generated concern, and physicians, fearing that they may miss such an injury, have adopted the practice of obtaining computed tomography on virtually all patients with significant blunt trauma. This practice exposes large numbers patients to dangerous radiation at considerable expense, while detecting injuries in a small minority of cases. Existing data suggest that a limited number of criteria can reliably identify blunt injury victims who have "no risk" of abdominal or pelvic injuries, and hence no need for computed tomography (CT), without misidentifying any injured patient. It is estimated that nationwide implementation of such criteria could result in an annual reduction in radiographic charges of $75 million, and a significant decrease in radiation exposure and radiation induced malignancies. This study seeks to determine whether "low risk" criteria can reliably identify patients who have sustained significant abdominal or pelvic injuries and safely decrease CT imaging of blunt trauma patients. This goal will be accomplished in the following manner: All blunt trauma victims undergoing computed tomography of the abdomen/pelvis in the emergency department will undergo routine clinical evaluations prior to radiographic imaging. Based on these examinations, the presence or absence of specific clinical findings (i.e. abdominal/pelvic/flank pain, abdominal/pelvic/flank tenderness, bruising abrasions, distention, hip pain, hematuria, hypotension, tachycardia, low or falling hematocrit, intoxication, altered sensorium, distracting injury, positive FAST imaging, dangerous mechanism, abnormal x-ray imaging) will be recorded for each patient, as will the presence or absence of abdominal or pelvic injuries. The clinical findings will serve as potential imaging criteria. At the completion of the derivation portion of the study the criteria will be examined to find a subset that predicts injury with high sensitivity, while simultaneously excluding injury, and hence the need for imaging, in the remaining patients. These criteria will then be confirmed in a separate validation phase of the study. The criteria will be considered to be reliable if the lower statistical confidence limit for the measured sensitivity exceeds 98.0%. Potential reductions in CT imaging will be estimated by determining the proportion of "low-risk" patients that do not have significant abdominal or pelvic injuries.
This multicenter study aims to evaluate the accuracy of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in diagnosing abdominal solid organ injuries in pediatric patients. Up to 130 subjects will complete the study across approximately 5-10 sites in the US, with up to 30 patients in the training phase (3 per site) and 100 patients in the treatment phase of the study. All subjects will have had a CT scan as part of standard of care, confirming at least one solid organ abdominal injury. The study procedure will occur within 48 hours from time of injury. All subjects will have an abdominal ultrasound without contrast, followed by a contrast-enhanced ultrasound using the contrast agent Lumason. Ultrasound and contrast-enhanced ultrasound results will be compared to the CT scan results. The CT and ultrasound scans will be read locally and will undergo central review.
At the end of most abdominal operations, the fascial layer is closed by stitching edges of the wound together. However, because of logistic and/or technical reasons or the patient's critical condition, the surgeon is forced to leave the abdomen open. The current approach for temporary coverage of abdomen is vacuum assisted techniques (VAT). This technique requires the use of vacuum-assisted drainage to remove blood or watery fluid from a wound or operative site. Although this is the most successful and commonly used procedure, there are some limitations to this method. For example, VAT have little effect on preventing lateral movement of the wound edges. Therefore, VAT it is not the ideal procedure in aiding surgeons to closed the abdomen. The purpose of this study is to compare usual care (vacuum or non-vacuum methods for temporary coverage of the OA) versus usual care plus a novel new abdominal binder device called ABRO™ that may aid in the closure of patients who undergo open abdomen closure procedures.