ANZCTR search results

The prevalence of overweight and obese individuals has significantly increased in Australia over the past 20-30 years. Associated with high body mass is the increased the risks of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, certain cancers, sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis, psychological disorders and social problems.Overall, the aim of this study is to examine the gene changes during weight loss and identify the potential gene targets of a high-protein diet that may be important for preservation of muscle mass. Different protein preparations could then be tested looking specifically at these gene changes. Those protein preparations identified as important for preservation of muscle mass will be reported as a beneficial inclusion in high-protein weight loss and may ‘aid’ in the maintenance of long-term weight reduction.

This study looks at the effectiveness of additional psychological support for people receiving radiotherapy for head and neck cancer in helping with depression and malnutrition. Participants will receive: - psycho-education for depression - cognitive behaviour therapy for depression - motivational interviewing for improving nutrition. These are 10 minute sessions, twice weekly, following radiotherapy treatments. Participants are assessed for depression and malnutrition during the first week of treatment, last week of treatment and four weeks after treatment. Depression and malnutrition are both measured using validated assessment tools. The study aims to see whether depression and malnutrition can be effectively addressed by providing additional psychological support.

Point of Care (POC)technology as the potential to expediate decision making and therefore benedit patient care and flow throught the Emergency Department. POC International Normalised Ratio (INR) is in common use in the community for monitoring warfarin therapy use. If found to be accurate as a marker of coagulopathy for emergency patients would potentially be a useful addition to tests available to the Emergency Physician

The aim is to carry out a case-control study to demonstrate abnormalities in postprandial lipoprotein metabolism, in men with the metabolic syndrome (MetS) compared with lean men. A further aim is to demonstrate that postprandial lipoprotein metabolism is improved, but not normalized, in men with MetS treated with a statin.

Chronic hepatitis B virus infection(HBV) affects 400 million people worldwide. It leads to 1.2 million deaths annually. An individual's prognosis when affected by the disease is related to it's severity.Patients who have cirrhosis as a result of HBV have high rates of complications such as liver cancer and gastrointestinal bleeding.Patients with advancing disease therefore have a more compelling need for treatment ,thus accurate evaluation is essential. Liver biopsy up until now has been the gold standard for evaluation but it has many complications(incuding bleeding and death),contraindications and error .It is not suitable for serial assessment. A new device that has been developed in this regard is fibroscan.Fibroscan measures liver stiffness which equates to liver fibrosis(disease). It does this by transmitting a wave impulse through the liver.The faster the wave travels the more fibrosed the liver is.It is a non-invasive and painless procedure much like an ultrasound. Blood markers to assess liver fibrosis are also available but have not been well evaluated in patients with HBV. We propose to recruit 250 participants with chronic HBV from several Melbourne hopitals who are undergoing liver biopsy as part of their routine care.Participants will be required to fill in a detailed questionnaire in order to evaluate further their liver disease .Within 4 weeks of the biopsy a fibroscan will be performed along with blood tests helping to assess the degree of liver fibrosis. We willl compare the results of these non-invasive tests with liver biopsy results to review the diagnostic accuracy of fibroscan and blood fibrosis markers. We will also follow the participants for 2 years with annual fibroscans and blood tests to estimate progression of fibrosis and the affects of anti-viral medication on fibrosis.We also hope to assess the role of insensitivity to the body's natural insulin production to progression of liver fibrosis in patients with HBV by simply measuring fasting blood insulin and glucose levels and comparing these to the liver biopsy results.Insulin insensitivity has been confimed as an independent risk factor for liver fibrosis in a previous study of Hepatitis C patients,this has not yet been shown in a Hepatitis B population.

This study aims to determine whether exposure to simulated solar ultraviolet radiation at levels relevant to normal daily activities can suppress the immune response to vaccination.

Main Objective: To determine the effectiveness of video feedback in improving on-line awareness and adjustment in persons with traumatic brain injury compared to verbal feedback and experiential feedback only. Hypothesis: 1. Treatment Group A (video & verbal feedback) & Treatment Group B (verbal feedback) will demonstrate greater improvement in on-line awareness compared to the control (experiential feedback) group. 2. Treatment Group A (video & verbal feedback) will demonstrate greater improvement in on-line awareness than Treatment Group B (verbal feedback). 3. Gains in on-line awareness will be maintained for Treatment Group A (video & verbal feedback) at four-week follow-up. 4. No hypotheses have been generated about the impact of the treatment on measures of intellectual awareness (AQ) or emotional status (DASS), as these are exploratory variables.

This study looks at the effectiveness of chemotherapy with the drug Omacetaxine in people with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Who is it for? You can join this study if you have chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) (cancer of blood cells) which is in chronic, accelerated, or blast phase and you have have had no success with or have been intolerant to therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (iminitab - Glivec). Trial details All participants will be treated with induction course cycles consisting of subcutaneous (SC) Omacetaxine administered twice daily for 14 consecutive days every 28 days. During this induction therapy, participants will be evaluated every 7 days with complete blood and platelet counts; the number of consecutive dose s of Omacetaxine or intervals between subsequent cycles may be adjusted as necessary, according to guidelines provided in the treatment plan. Omacetaxine causes programmed cell death in myeloid cancer cells. Patients will be monitored from the beginning of treatment until any return of the disease or until they die. The study aims to measure the effectiveness of treatment, and investigates the tolerance to and toxicity of Omacetaxine.

Kidney stones [renal colic] can be a very painful condition. Current recommendations suggest non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents [e.g. ketorolac, indomethacin] as first line treatment, although it is recognised that many patients also need strong painkillers such as morphine. A recent report has suggested that anti-histamine drugs [such as promethazine] may also be effective. The aim of this study is to compare the combination of promethazine/ indomethacin/ morphine against indomethacin/ morphine on the amount of pain reported and total dose of morphine needed for patients with kidney stone pain.

Dietary fibre and protein are thought to attenuate postprandial blood glucose levels. This study in 33 participants with type 2 diabetes, will compare glucose and insulin responses following consumption of drinks containing glucose with and without protein and fibre from two different sources: lupin and soy. It is proposed that: 1. Fibre and protein-enriched drinks (lupin and soy) will be associated with lower postprandial levels of glucose and insulin compared with the carbohydrate-matched control; and 2. The lupin-enriched drink will be associated with lower levels of glucose and insulin compared with the soy-enriched drink.