View clinical trials related to Brain Death.
Filter by:In France the diagnosis of brain death relies on electroencephalography (EEG) or cerebral angiography. Concerning the latter a time of 6 hours is mandatory between the clinical diagnosis and the realization of the cerebral computed tomography (CT) angiography. Transcranial doppler (TCD) is not recommended in the french guidelines for the diagnosis of brain death. In other countries, some flow patterns allow to confirm the diagnosis of brain death. The hypothesis of our study is that TCD could shorten the time between the clinical diagnosis of brain death and the realization of the CT angiography.
The goal of this study is to evaluate the effect of N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) administration in organ donors on the kidney graft function of recipients.
The investigators propose to assess 36 donors' nutritional status using accepted parameters (prealbumin, resting energy expenditure); to assess nutrient intestinal absorption through 13Curacil breath tests; and to evaluate serum concentrations of IL-6 and TNFalpha to determine if continuing or initiating enteral feeding and nutritional supplementation is effective in restoring or maintaining nutritional parameters.
As medicine advances, many lives can be saved in the intensive care unit. However, when multiple organ failure occurs, the mortality rate of patients increases dramatically. Therefore, the major goal in the intensive care unit is to prevent the occurrence of multiple organ failure. The sepsis protocol and early goal directed treatment have great effects to reduce development of multiple organ failure and to decrease the mortality rate. However, sometime the condition of patient deteriorated in spite of both the mean blood pressure and mixed venous oxygen saturation are normal. Some experts recognize that there might be microcirculatory dysfunction of tissue or organ. The dysfunction of microcirculation might due to vasoconstriction or microthrombosis. Vasoconstriction might result from systemic inflammation, reactive oxygen species, or dysfunction of synthesis of NO (nitric oxide). Microthrombosis might result from systemic inflammation, reactive oxygen species, imbalance of coagulatory system, or damage of endothelial cell. In clinical practice, the oxidative stress is related to circulatory shock, sepsis, acute lung injury, and acute respiratory distress syndrome. This study tries to investigate the relation between oxidative stress and microcirculation. Furthermore, the investigators will try to investigate the correlation between the severity of oxidative stress and microcirculatory dysfunction and the severity of disease and prognosis. The investigators hope this study will help them to figure out the picture of disease progression of patients. It may conduct further study to modulate the oxidative stress, to improve the microcirculatory function, and finally to improve the outcome of patients.
We hypothesized that brain death is associated with an early systemic inflammatory response, possibly combined with activation of apoptotic cell death, two events that may contribute to induce rapid organ dysfunction. In this study of brain-dead donors and controls, we assayed plasma cytokines and soluble factors, investigated plasma endotoxin levels as a triggering factor for inflammation, measured ex vivo cytokine production by blood leukocytes to determine whether immunosuppression occurred after brain death, and examined skeletal muscle biopsies to look for evidence of inflammation and increased apoptosis in peripheral tissue.
The purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness of albuterol versus placebo with the following specific aims: a) Treatment of brain dead organ donors with albuterol will reduce pulmonary edema, improve donor oxygenation, and increase the number of lungs available for transplantation, b) Developing a blood test to predict the development of primary graft dysfunction in lung transplant recipients, and c) treating brain dead organ donors with albuterol will decrease markers of primary graft dysfunction and lead to improved lung transplant recipient outcomes and to higher rates of lungs suitable for transplantation.
To compare oral versus intravenous administration of thyroid hormone: 1) for reversibility of hemodynamic instability in organ donors, and, 2) the pharmacokinetics of oral vs iv thyroid administration