ANZCTR search results

The aims of this NH&MRC funded project are to evaluate the efficacy, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of a structured primary care based diabetes prevention program (Life!) being implemented in Victoria for people of the age over 50 years who are at high risk of type 2 diabetes. This will be achieved by monitoring clinical and behavioural outcomes of participants of the Life! program before and after completion (particularly any reduction in diabetes risk, weight and central body obesity, and changes in quality of life) and by comparing these with another group receiving usual care at the same time. Economic assessment will be performed by evaluating whether the program is ‘value-for-money’ using economic analysis, modelling of longer term impacts, and evaluating of any efficiency issues.

Dyspnoea, defined as an uncomfortable sensation of breathing (which is often reported by patients as breathlessness), is a common symptom affecting up to 80% of cancer patients and 95% of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Nearly half of all patients requiring palliative care report breathlessness as a problem during the last year of life. Moreover, dyspnoea is consistently high-lighted as a poor prognostic factor and harbinger of impending death. Ventilatory drive is the net result of complex automatic and subconscious, peripheral and central, neural and chemical mechanisms. Dyspnoea is the conscious perception which has taken account of the net result of those mechanisms and integrated it with other cognitive and emotive factors that are also affecting the individual. Dyspnoea is thus a subjective symptom that is debilitating to patients, impacting greatly on quality of life of both patient and carer. It is a challenging symptom to manage and is often impossible to reverse despite maximal treatment of the underlying cause. Anxiety is often reported by patients as a major component of breathlessness with breathlessness leading to anxiety and anxiety exacerbating breathlessness leading to a progressive spiral of cause and effect. Hypothesis : Intranasal midazolam is superior to placebo for the palliation of dyspnoea in patients with optimally treated life limiting disease

This study is being conducted to see if a TPM/Diclofenac gel mix will penetrate into the skin more, and more quickly, than Voltaren. It will also assess how safe the gel mix is.

The risk of cardiomyopathy as a side-effect is related to the total dose of anthracycline given to a patient. Cardiomyopathy may in turn cause symptoms of heart failure such as shortness of breath, increased tiredness, swelling of your ankles, inability to keep up your usual level of activity. These symptoms may be serious and even permanent. Current practice is to ensure normal heart function before starting anthracycline therapy. This is done using one of two available techniques: echocardiogram or gated cardiac blood pool scan (GCBPS). An echocardiogram uses ultrasound whereas a GCBPS uses a radioactive isotope. Use of a radioactive isotope means exposure to a small amount of radiation and a small risk of allergic reaction to the isotope. Current practice is to repeat one of these two tests only if the patient later experiences any symptoms of heart failure. The aim of this study is to assess whether a newer technique using Tissue Doppler Imaging (TDI) is more sensitive in detecting early changes in heart function. The study also examines whether changes in specific blood tests (known as cardiac biomarkers) correlate more closely to changes in heart function as measured by TDI or as measured by echocardiogram.. The use of TDI measurement as a technique is not proven in the monitoring of patients that receive anthracycline therapy and so is investigational in nature. For the purposes of this study heart function for all patients will be measured using echocardiogram and TDI. This will be done as one procedure.

Vitamin D deficiency becomes more common in the older persons. Vitamin D have been proven to reduce falls. How this benefit is achieved is not clearly known. We suspect that Vitamin D supplementation enhances balance performance in the elderly persons who suffer falls.

This randomised controlled trial will determine whether a 12 week, outpatient, supervised exercise training program, followed by a home-based maintenance exercise program, is safe and improves exercise capacity and quality of life (QoL) in patients with PAH.

This project is part of a research program examining the efficacy of Internet based education and treatment programs for people with commmon mental disorders. This project examines the effectiveness of an education program for people with social phobia and/or panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia) and/or GAD. We expect that people in either immediate or delayed education groups to report similar benefit following the active component of their program.

The prognosis of metastatic and recurrent breast cancer remains poor. Systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy produces objective remission in a majority of cases, but the duration of such remissions is short. Early sequential studies suggested that a plateau may have been reached both in the proportion of patients achieving remission and in remission duration. Questions of interest concern optimal usage of existing agents, with particular reference to maintenance of quality of life during treatment. Experience from earlier protocols have indicated the unpopularity of maintaining high dosage Adriamycin containing combination chemotherapy until progressive disease or until maximum tolerable cumulative Adriamycin dosage. If similar control of disease could be obtained with an intermittent chemotherapy schedule, patients would enjoy periods without the side effects of chemotherapy, presumably to the improvement of their quality of life. This study was therefore designed to compare continuous chemotherapy, administered until disease progression, with intermittent therapy, whereby treatment is stopped after 3 cycles and then repeated for three more cycles only when there was evidence of disease progression.

The study is designed to assess the usefulness of ultrasound measurement of inferior vena cava:aorta diameter in assessing dehydration. Children with diabetic ketoacidosis are chosen because they are reliably dehydrated. Dehydration is being quantified by weight measurements at the same time as ultrasound assessment - upon admission and discharge.

Based on biological attribution theory it is hypothesised that the biological explanation for depression will lead to a greater decrease in young peoples’ anticipated self-stigma associated with depression than the other two conditions. It is further hypothesised that any decrease in self-stigma will lead to increased help-seeking intention (from a mental health professional) by these young people if they were to experience depression in the future.