View clinical trials related to Congenital Abnormalities.
Filter by:To quantify potential short- and long-term benefits of robotically-guided minimally invasive (MIS) or open-approach spine surgery in adult patients undergoing multi-level spinal instrumentation surgery, in comparison to image- or navigation-guided instrumentation in a matching cohort of control patients, performed using a freehand technique, both in MIS and open approaches.
In this research study investigators want to learn more about capillary malformations which are also known as port wine stains. Investigators are asking children with capillary malformations (port wine stains) to be in the research, because investigators do not have a good idea of what to expect from the current treatments of these malformations. These malformations are treated with laser as clinically indicated and there are no standardized methods to assess improvement.
The investigators will assess changes in breast appearance, graft retention and quality of life over one year in patients who have received direct autologous adipose tissue injection for the treatment of objectionable post-surgical breast deformities. These patients have undergone the resection of breast tissue to treat either benign or malignant breast disease.
The investigators will check the feasibility of an intraprocedural vitality diagnostics and the identification of an indication for Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA).
Diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) imaging is a well established method for detecting acute injury to the brain and is used on all children undergoing an MRI brain scan at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The possibility of using DW MRI to study other areas of the body, such as the spinal cord, has been recognised as having great clinical potential. However, two main problems have hindered the clinical application of the technique; firstly, the extreme motion sensitivity of the technique meant that respiratory motion have hampered clinical studies. Secondly, the close proximity of the spinal cord to the bones in the spinal column complicates the application of the techniques developed for the brain to the spine. Recently, several techniques have been developed which address these problems and these are now available on the MRI scanners used at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. We now wish to evaluate how well these techniques work on children in a routine clinical setting. For this reason we wish to add a single scan of the spine to the imaging protocol of children receiving a routine scan of the brain or spine. This will permit us to evaluate the image quality in both normal and abnormal spines. We plan on enrolling 60 patients with normal spines and 30 patients with abnormal spines. No additional sedation and/or contrast will be required and the additional imaging time for the diffusion studies will be less than 10 minutes. Parental consent will be a pre-requisite for any patient to be enrolled into the study.
Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVMs) are thin-walled abnormal vessels which provide direct capillary-free communications between the pulmonary and systemic circulations. Patients with PAVMs have usually have low blood oxygen levels and are at risk of other complications including strokes, brain abscesses, pregnancy-related complications and haemorrhage. We hypothesise that the complications of PAVM patients arise from their PAVMs and not the more recognised intracardiac forms of shunting. We propose to perform echocardiograms to enable assessment of the presence of other causes of capillary-free communications between the pulmonary and systemic circulations.
Examination of the fetal brain at autopsy is technically challenging because of marked fragility of the brain tissue. Studies have found postmortem fetal MR to be particularly useful in examining gross structural abnormalities in fetal brain and spine. We have recently included postmortem MR as part of the radiological studies for fetal autopsy workup. Using the same MR data, the development of normal layering of the brain, also called laminar organization, can also be assessed. This laminar organization of the brain is often disturbed in congenital malformations. Our aim is to study the disturbance in laminar organization of the postmortem brain with MR, using structural MR and a type of MR sequence called diffusion tensor imaging, which is well suited for assessing the organization of the developing brain. The postmortem MR findings will be compared with gold standard of histopathology. This will help us understand the abnormal development of gray and white matter in brain malformations. Knowledge gained from studying the abnormal laminar organization in brain malformations will serve as a reference for future studies of fetal brain malformations in-utero using MRI.
This project seeks to develop a standardized technique for simultaneous capturing bi-planar images of patients against a standard background with a grid that can be used later for the quantitative determination of global balance and thoracic symmetry. We hypothesize that patients who are successfully managed with surgery will demonstrate an improvement in global balance and thoracic symmetry that can be accurately measured. This measurement station will be specifically developed to provide a standardized, reproducible means to compare clinical assessments of surgical and non-surgical outcomes, and establish normative data for comparison. This standardized tool can be established at multiple centers for use in multicenter trials.
This study focuses on women undergoing termination of pregnancy for fetal anomalies (TOPFA). Psychological consequences of such terminations may be even greater than those associated with spontaneous losses of pregnancy because of shame and guilt which can result in social isolation. Currently, there is little support for women after they have left hospital. In this study, 50 TOPFA women will be randomly assigned to an intervention group and 50 to a control group. By completing four questionnaires at the time of induction of labour, total sample will be assessed for depression, stress and "hardiness"; they will be reassessed at 3, 6, and 12 months. Total sample will be interviewed by phone at 6 and 12 months. We hope to determine whether a telephone-based intervention (a biweekly supportive call) can decrease the emotional distress experienced by women undergoing termination of pregnancy.
The purpose of this study is to compare red blood cell folate levels in women who are taking oral contraceptives with or without folic acid