ANZCTR search results

The purpose of the study is to reduce the symptoms of mild to moderate obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) and snoring using the Oventus oral appliance. Sleep apnoea is assigned an apnoea hypopnoea index (AHI) number which indicates the severity of OSA. The aim of the study is to reduce AHI by at least 50% in at least 20% of the participants in the study.

Tooth extraction or loss results in resorption of bone volume in the jaw. This is a natural phenomenon which occurs mainly during the first 3 months following removal of the tooth. Preservation of bone volume facilitates subsequent placement of dental implants and leads to improved functional and aesthetic outcomes for patients. Guided bone regeneration (GBR) is a commonly used technique where a bone substrate (autologous or de-proteinised bovine bone matrix) is packed around the exposed implant to fill the defect, and covered with a membrane. The membrane promotes the growth of new bone by occluding infiltration of competing soft tissue, but permitting fluid and nutrient transfer to the newly forming bone. Native collagen membranes of porcine origin are commonly used as they have been proven to significantly enhance periodontal and bone regeneration in animal and human clinical studies. Celgro(tm) is an acellular type I/III collagen matrix of porcine origin. The product consists of natural collagen bundles without cross-linking or chemical additives. It is free from animal-derived DNA and pathogens of porcine origin. Celgro(tm) is a next-generation membrane that is manufactured using collagen originating from animals bred and exclusively raised in Australia, eliminating disease transmission concerns associated with foreign products. Additionally, the collagen bundle structure of Celgro(tm) is mechanically stronger and more elastic than other collagen membrane products of this type. This study proposes to use Celgro(tm) in a standardised dental implantation procedure to assess its suitability for use in GBR.

The Coronary Angiogram Database of South Australia (CADOSA) was established in 2011 to establish a clinical quality registry of cardiac catheterisation procedures and is know as CADOSA-Registry. The registry captures detailed clinical, angiographic and outcomes data on every South Australia public hospital patient undergoing coronary angiography/PCI. The purpose of the registry is multifold and includes monitoring patient safety, defining natural history of coronary heart disease, assessing performance measures, and evaluating appropriateness of procedures. Furthermore, the CADOSA Registry offers opportunity to address research question if the appropriate ethical and scientific requirements are meet. The CADOSA Registry is compatible with the American College of Cardiology (Registered Trademark) CathPCI (Registered Trademark) Registry, sharing common data elements and data specifications. The CADOSA-Registry captures all the in-hospital data by prospective data collection. MACE at 12 months is assessed via data linkage linkage with hospital administration datasets, no patient contact is required. Attached is the CADOSA Data Collection form, which details all of the data that is collected for each procedure.

Venous cannulation via peripheral intravenous catheters (PIVC) is the simplest and most frequently used method for drug, fluid and blood product administration. Researchers estimate that up to 70% of patients in acute care hospitals require a PIVC. However, PIVC are associated with inherent complications which can be mechanical or infectious. Failure rates of these devices is unacceptably high, affecting up to 40% of patients receiving this therapy. Of these, 30% failed due to occlusion and infiltration (fluids into surrounding tissues) meaning patients had to have the PIVC replaced, which has implications for patient comfort, therapy and health care costs.There have been a range of strategies developed to prevent or reduce PIVC related complications including flushing regimes to maintain PIVC patency. However, current flushing practice is widely varied, with poor outcomes. There is little evidence that flushing of PIVC is actually happening in practice. To achieve best and evidence based practice it imperative that trial research is conducted to establish the best regime for maintaining PIVC patency. The study aims to establish the feasibility of conducting a four arm, factorial, randomized trial evaluating the efficacy and cost effectiveness of different flushing frequencies and volumes.

Overuse lower limb injuries related to training are common in people who participate in regular physical activity. Foot orthoses are commonly used for the prevention of such injuries but evidence for their effectiveness is limited. In this study, participants will be randomised to using flat insoles or prefabricated foot orthosis while undertaking 11 weeks of basic training at the Royal Australian Navy Recruit School, Cerberus, Victoria, Australia. This randomised controlled trial will evaluate the effectiveness of foot orthoses for the prevention of lower limb injuries in naval recruits.

To explore the feasibility and effectiveness of group therapy for young adults who self-injure. Self-injury is commonly used to regulate and cope with intense negative emotions and can involve cutting, burning or carving the skin and hitting or banging the self or hard objects. This program aims to better understand which treatments are most effective in reducing this behaviour and improving well-being in those who self-injure. By participating in this research, you will be providing important information which will be used to assist with further development of treatments for self-injury.

Children and adults who participate in recommended levels of physical activity experience a plethora of physical and psychological health benefits. However, 80% of men and 80% of girls do not meet government physical activity recommendations in Australia. Of particular concern is that girls are less active than boys at all ages. Moreover, girls drop out of sport at a rate six times greater than boys. There are a number of biological, psycho-social and environmental factors that explain girls' lower activity levels, with many of these modifiable. For example, less than 10% of girls can perform basic sports skills (e.g. throwing, catching) by the time they leave primary school. This is alarming as research shows that these skills are strongly associated with physical activity, fitness and weight status. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop community-based interventions that engage girls in physical activity and develop the knowledge and movement skills for lifelong participation. Parents play a critical role in their children's physical activity levels through provision of opportunities, encouragement and role modelling positive activity attitudes and behaviours. Despite this, girls receive less encouragement and opportunities for physical activity from their parents than boys. Emerging research has shown that mothers and fathers differ in their physical activity-related parenting practices and that fathers who are actively engaged with their daughters impact on a host of important physical and mental health outcomes including higher levels of cognitive ability, self-esteem, social skills, and educational outcomes. However, research has shown fathers spend less time with their daughters than their sons and may discount the importance of their relationships with their daughters. Physical activity provides an exciting medium through which to develop physical, cognitive and social-emotional skills in girls and fathers may play a key role. The overall aim of this pilot project is to develop and evaluate an intervention targeting both fathers and their daughter(s) to improve the physical activity levels and social/emotional health of girls. Two major purposes are: (i) to help fathers improve their own physical activity levels and learn parenting skills to promote and role model positive behaviours relating to physical activity for their daughters (ii) to improve the physical activity behaviours, fundamental movement skill proficiency and social-emotional well-being of their daughters.

Surgical site infections are one of the most common infections that a person may acquire in hospital, and can increase the length of stay and the cost of the surgery by up to 5 times. This is a burden on the person and the community. By preventing infections in surgical sites it is hoped that a person’s health will be better after an operation. With any surgical procedure, the skin at the operation site is routinely cleansed with an antiseptic solution. This skin cleansing solution aims to reduce the number of germs (microorganisms) present on the skin and therefore reduce the chance of the surgical wound becoming infected. It is not known whether one skin antiseptic is better than the other at preventing infection, so the Research Team would like to see if there is a difference between 3 commonly used, approved skin disinfectants. The solutions are used world-wide for disinfecting the skin in surgical procedures.

This study will test two hypotheses and consist of two parts: 1. Part 1. The thickness of abdominal SCF, measured by ultrasound at 18-22 weeks gestation, predicts maternal outcomes (gestational diabetes, pregnancy-related hypertensive disorders, mode of delivery) and fetal outcomes (estimated fetal weight, birth outcome, gestational age, gender, weight, length, head circumference, large for gestational age, small for gestational age, intrauterine growth restriction). 2. Part 2. The thickness of abdominal SCF, measured by ultrasound at 18-22 weeks gestation, predicts the difficulty inserting an epidural, the difficulty palpating the landmarks of epidural insertion and the subcutaneous fat measured at lumbar interspace L3-4.

There are several established methods in Pain Medicine where a patient is able to describe the intensity of their pain. The most popular involve scoring pain intensity using a numeric scale comprising numbers from 1 to 10 and a visual scale which is 10 cm long and allows a clinician to measure the visual rating out of 10. Both these methods of pain intensity measurement carry the assumption that pain intensity increases in a predictable way as the numbers on these two measurement scales might indicate. The truth is that this is not likely to be true. The World Health Organization, for example, places great significance on a cancer pain rating that is higher than 3 out of 10, recommending that treatment for pain greater than 3 out of 10 be escalated. The most likely reason for changes in pain intensity not being even and predictable is that pain intensity is only a small part of overall pain experience. Pain intensity is influenced by many other factors, including the context of the pain (its effect on movement, sleep, mood), side effects of medications, anticipation of pain severity prior to pain experience, attitudes and beliefs relating to pain experience and satisfaction with the experience of pain management just to mention a few. There are statistical methods that can help us to explore how pain intensity changes as it increases. These complex methods can be applied though analysis of various measurements from patients, which can be easily collected in observational studies. The results of these analyses can then be used to look for steep “steps” in the pain intensity scale among populations of patients which indicate that pain level has increased to a greater degree than the gaps between the numbers on the pain rating scale might indicate. It is the numeric value where these steps occur, for example at a pain level of 3 out of 10 where recommendations to escalate pain treatment might be appropriate. Such points have already been identified in populations of patients affected by cancer pain, chronic pain as well as patients after surgery. There is only one study which examined a multiethnic population, the study involving cancer pain. A group of researchers that I have been working with have identified several factors that are very different in patients of Chinese ethnicity compared with patients of Caucasian ethnicity after major surgery. Many of these factors (Chinese people were more likely to defer analgesic management to their managing doctors, had greater expectation of severe postoperative pain, greater susceptibility to itch with morphine, lesser satisfaction with pain management) are likely to create “steps” in pain intensity scales that may differ significantly between these two races. We hope to compare two populations of 450 patients after surgery from China and Australia in order to confirm this belief as pain treatment escalation may need to be set at different levels in accordance with ethnicity.