ANZCTR search results

The study is investigating whole body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other diagnostic procedures in people at high risk of cancer. Who is it for? You may be eligible to join this study if you are aged between 18-70 years, and are a known NF1 patient, OR a known cancer risk gene mutation carrier, OR have a family member at 50% risk of carrying a mutation. You will not be eligible if you have an active cancer diagnosis. Study details - All participants in this study will have an initial clinical review followed by annual diagnostic procedures for a period of 3 years. This may include annual whole body MRI scans, breast MRI (females only), fecal occult blood test and full blood count. Additional investigations including colonoscopy and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy may also be conducted at varying time points, as indicated by family history and clinical appropriateness. Participants will also be asked to complete psychosocial questionnaires and invited to participate in in-depth interviews. This study will provide estimates of the prevalence and incidence of investigable lesions, and the acceptability, safety, psychosocial impact, and cost-effectiveness of the screening protocol. This information will be used to design a large scale screening project.

Our aim is to study the efficacy of pterygium excision and conjunctival autograft with autologous blood and compare with the gold standards of sutured autograft and autograft with fibrin glue. Conjunctival autografts with autologous blood have been reported to be effective in the literature. Only a small number of prospective studies with small numbers of patients have studied conjunctival autografts with autologous blood. Comparing this method to that with sutures and with fibrin glue will provide meaningful comparative data on efficacy of method, rates of recurrence, cost and patient comfort. We hypothesize that patients will experience less discomfort and will have similar rates of graft stability and recurrence.

During Knee replacement surgery there are different techniques that the doctor can use to anaesthetise the patient during their surgery and differing options for managing pain relief immediately following surgery. The aim of this study is to compare 3 ways of doing this and to work out which way is best by looking at the pain relief needed by the patients in the different groups after their surgery. The 3 different ways are: 1. Locally Administered Anaesthesia 2. Spinal Anaesthesia 3. Femoral Nerve Block

This study involves participants who have undergone solid organ transplantation and are either experiencing human cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease or are at risk of developing it. The study is assessing the feasibility of generating T cells (a type of white blood cell) that target CMV, and the effect of these cells when infused into participants. Eligible participants will donate 250-300mL of blood to expand CMV-specific T cells which will form their treatment. Participants will receive 2-6 intravenous infusions of T cells. The effects of the treatment will be studied by monitoring signs and symptoms and by blood tests. Total length of involvement in the study will be no longer than 10 months.

Dental decay (caries) is a highly prevalent disease in Australia and Early Childhood Caries (ECC) is one of the most common chronic diseases of childhood. ECC is the presence of any decayed, missing (due to decay) or filled surface in primary (deciduous) teeth in children 6 years or less. ECC has wide-ranging health and developmental consequences and is often associated with pain, infection and abscesses which can lead to delayed growth, reduced general health, sleep problems and disrupted social and academic development due to school absences. In Australia the epidemiological and service data on prevalence and morbidity for child oral health is patchy; with only 2002 national data available. In 2002 Australian children 0-4 years in the National Child Oral Health survey had a mean of 1.55 decayed, missing or filled teeth (dmft) and 80% of this was active, untreated decay. Of those children with decay (44%), the mean dmft per child was 4.23. In 2006, the Victorian Child Health and Wellbeing Survey found that 21% of 0-3 year olds had experienced toothache and Victorian data available from DHSV shows that of children aged 0-6 years attending public dental clinics in 2009 (n=14,911), 47% had tooth decay (n=7,072), with an average dmft of 2.2. Dental treatment was the 3rd most common cause of hospitalisation for 0-14 year olds in Australia in 2009-10 and the average cost per admission for extractions and restorations was AUD$2508 per child. Importantly the severity of the disease in young children may be increasing as there was a 53% increase in dental Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions (ACSC) admissions from 1997/8 to 2004/5 for 0–9 year-olds, with an average annual increase of 7.6%. However, caries rates are higher among the more socially disadvantaged, particularly in childhood, and amongst those living in rural and regional areas. This is also reflected in the ACSC data and rural children have dental related hospital admission rates that are 4 times higher than metropolitan children. After tooth extraction, the potential impacts on child social, emotional, nutritional and developmental experiences are considerable. The significance of this project is to test the effectiveness of a simplified method, reported in the literature, for managing carious primary molar teeth in preschool children without any tooth preparation or local analgesia and therefore making treatment more acceptable to preschool children in a primary care setting. If the approach were shown to be effective, the expected long term outcome would be a reduction in hospital admissions for the management of dental caries in this age group.

Many recent studies have shown that overweight and mildly obese individuals have marginally better outcomes compared to individuals with normal weight following surgery or even nonsurgical situations such as heart related problems. However, body mass index (BMI) is not an accurate measure of body fat composition. We therefore need a measure that can be used at the bedside as well as one that can accurately predict the body fat composition and hence the risk associated with surgery. This pilot study is a miniature version of a future multicentre prospective cohort study to assess if waist circumference is a predictor of postoperative major adverse outcomes after elective non-cardiac surgeries. If that is so, we would like to know if it is better predictor than the currently popular predictor, BMI. We are also testing if other measures like waist to hip ratio, neck circumference are equally useful predictors or not.

Poor functioning in social activities, one of the most debilitating aspects of schizophrenia, is a core feature of this illness. Poor social functioning reinforces social isolation due to difficulties with communicating and understanding other people’s perspectives, as well as one’s own. It may also increase the risk of disease and death. Ninety percent of people with schizophrenia show poor social functioning even while in remission from their illness Improving social disability in schizophrenia is a high research priority world-wide, driven by consumers’ reports that it is one of their greatest unmet needs. Research suggests that impaired social cognition underlies poor social functioning. Social cognition is the mental operation that allows humans to think about and form impressions about other people in social interactions. Put simply it is people being able to think about other people. The aim of study was to determine the most effective way to treat poor social cognition in schizophrenia in order to improve real-world social functioning. We will do this by comparing the independent effects of two innovative social-cognitive remediation programs developed by us at the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (MACCS): one targets poor emotion recognition (emotion recognition training; ERT) and the other targets poor ‘mental-state reasoning’ (i.e., reasoning about other people in terms of the others’ thoughts). We refer to the second program as mental-state reasoning training (without ERT: MSRT). We expected to see improvements in participants' social thinking and functioning in every day life.

Chronic pelvic pain is a frustrating condition for many women, having a variety of potential causes including endometriosis, adenomyosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, adhesions, irritable bowel syndrome and bladder pain syndrome (BPS). Endometriosis is considered the main cause with a prevalence of 70-90% in women with chronic pelvic pain. A number of recent trials have found that bladder pain syndrome also is an important differential diagnosis to consider with studies showing 53-89% of women with chronic pelvic pain have bladder pain syndrome. Similarly studies have also reported the high prevalence of having concomitant bladder pain syndrome and endometriosis with a study by Cheng et el in 2011, finding 60% of women with BPS also had endometriosis. This study aims to assess the impact of laparoscopy and more specifically surgical treatment of endometriosis on bladder pain syndrome. The study will use questionnaires preoperatively which will be compared at three, six and twelve months post procedure. The primary outcome measure will be bladder pain reduction at 12 months following endometriosis surgery with bladder pain reduction being defined as a >/=50% bladder pain reduction by the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS).

The study aims to evaluate the nutritional status of chemo-radiotherapy patients. Who is it for? You may be eligible to join this study if you are aged 18 years or over and are undergoing curative intent chemo-radiotherapy at the Alan Walker Cancer Care Centre in Darwin, Northern Territory. Trial details All participants in this study will have their nutritional status assessed at baseline, first week of treatment, then final week of treatment, and finally at 1-month post treatment using the Patient Generated-Subjective Global Assessment. This is a validated malnutrition assessment tool for cancer patients. This study aims to baseline the nutritional status of chemo-radiotherapy patients undergoing treatment at the Alan Walker Cancer Care Centre (Darwin), identify contributors to nutritional deterioration and determine if there is a difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous patients. This study will provide a prospective analysis of malnutrition and a clear insight of nutritional status of cancer patients. This study will be the first of its kind to address the nutritional status of cancer patients in Indigenous Australians.

This study will evaluate the effectiveness of sleep education classes for high school students. As teenagers typically have a sleep pattern where they fall asleep late and wake up late, and which conflicts with getting up for school, this study will test 3 versions of sleep education classes against a control group (normal classes). These are: sleep education classes plus parent sleep education (SEC + P), sleep education classes plus light therapy (SEC + L) and sleep education classes plus parent sleep education plus light therapy (SEC + P + L). We expect that compared to the control classes that improvements in sleep and mood will occur in all 3 versions of the sleep education classes. We expect that the SEC + P + L will show the greatest improvements.