ANZCTR search results

To examine the effects of Botox injected into the pelvic floor muscles of women with demonstrable pelvic floor spasm, as regards to pain symptoms, sexual activity, quality of life and economic analysis compared to placebo.

This study will treat women with either one of two medications or placebo for three months prior to their surgery to observe the effect on their post-operative outcome with regard to symptomatology, change in quality of life and the ease of completing the procedure and time taken for the procedure.

A total of 4,400 people having coronary artery bypass graft surgery will participate in this project. Whilst surgery offers benefit to the majority ofpatients, a small proportion have serious complications (such as heart attack, stroke, infection or even death). Each of these can have a marked effect on quality of life. The purpose of this project is to study the effects of two medications, each of which may reduce complications associated with your heart surgery. The two drugs being tested are aspirin and tranexamic acid (TA). Aspirin and / or TA may protect against some of these complications.

Patients consenting to the trial will have baseline and day 1 postoperative measurements of their endothelial functioning on one arm. Preoperatively : A blood pressure cuff is inflated on the upper arm and an ultrasound is taken of the blood vessels in the arm as the cuff is deflated. Blood tests are taken for folate, homocysteine, arginine, citrulline, ADMA and nitrate. Intraoperatively : Patients will be randomly allocated to either 70% N2O in oxygen (FiO2 0.3) or oxygen with or without nitrogen (FiO2 0.8-1.0). Postoperatively : Patients will have the ultrasound on the same arm as preoperatively and blood tests will be done again. Half of the patients will have received nitrous oxide for a minimum of 2 hours and the other half only oxygen.

The aim of this project is to examine the acceptability and effectiveness of introducing a vocational specialist into the clinical program of a service providing clinical interventions for people aged between 15 and 25 experiencing a first episode of psychosis in the north and west regions of Melbourne. In the project a person with expertise in the rehabilitation employment sector will be employed to provide specialist input with clients of the Early Psychosis, Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC). The proposed intervention is based upon a model called supported employment (sometimes called individual placement and support). This model has been found to be the most effective model of vocational rehabilitation for people with chronic mental illnesses. However, to date only one published pilot study has examined the usefulness of this model in people in the early phase of their illnesses. This study, conducted in England, and another, unpublished from America, suggests that this model may be successfully applied to helping young people with mental illness return to work and study. Unemployment and withdrawal from training and study are often sequelae of psychosis, and for the group who go on to develop schizophrenia, unemployment rates of 80% and above have been reported both in Australia and other comparable countries. Unemployment, leads to social isolation, and lower socio-economic status, both of which, along with unemployment itself, are risk factors for further psychotic episodes. This intervention seeks to prevent this sequence of events from beginning by actively supporting young people who wish to work. Supported employment works by having a specialist who collaborates with the young person to help them identify competitive work (i.e. work opportunities that are open to the public as opposed to sheltered work opportunities available only to particular groups) that they would like to do, prepare for interviews and crucially, supports the person in the role after they have obtained the job. This support is often not at the workplace, but consists of meetings outside work. In all of the interventions the vocational specialist liaises with the clientÿ¢ÿ¿ÿ¿s case manager, and clinical care is continued throughout. The study will be conducted by recruiting clients of the EPPIC service who have expressed an interest in working. They will be randomised to either a group that will work with the vocational specialist or to a group that will receive EPPIC treatment as usual. Participants will be assessed at the time of coming into the study and six months later. The assessment battery will include demographic questions, measures of psychopathology, symptomatology and quality of life. There will also be a questionnaire examining work history in the previous six months. This information will be collected by a trained research assistant.

To assess whether the existing treatment for uncomplicated malaria in eastern parts of the Terai in Nepal (supfadoxine-pyrimethamine) is still effective and to determine whether artemether-lumefantrine is a more effective alternative is a significant treatment failreu rate for SP is present

We aim to assess whether new combination therapies for malaria, based on artemisinin drugs and a chloroquine-like drug piperaquine, will be effective in children with malaria in Papua New Guinea