ANZCTR search results

More than 20,000 heart operations are carried out each year in Australia. While many patients survive the operation, many spend long periods in hospital recovering. Common complications that can occur include a rapid and irregular heart rate (atrial fibrillation) and damage to the kidneys (known as acute kidney injury). These each occur in as many as one in four patients. Preventing or reducing the severity of these complications could improve the health of patients. Previous studies have suggested that acute kidney injury or atrial fibrillation may be reduced by using a drug known as ‘vasopressin’ to preserve blood pressure during surgery. Drugs to preserve blood pressure are often needed in cardiac surgery. However, the research studies that showed that vasopressin was a superior choice to noradrenaline were small, and the largest was conducted in a hospital and group of patients with a higher rate of complications. In this study we aim to assess whether a trial comparing vasopressin to a placebo infusion (inactive substance) is feasible in a Australian population.

We have highly effective psychological therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), however, individuals face multiple barriers to receiving gold-standard treatments. Most prolific of these is long waiting times or no access at all, due to the limited number of professionals trained in specialist PTSD treatments. Here, we aim to evaluate a simple, digital, memory-based program MemFlex, which has been demonstrated to improve PTSD symptoms, and ameliorate cognitive difficulties that predict prognosis and impede the efficacy of psychological therapy. It is expected that offering MemFlex to individuals with PTSD will improve both a) cognitive predictors of PTSD, and b) PTSD symptoms, relative to treatment as usual.

Chest physiotherapy (CPT) is regarded as an important contributor to the management, and potentially long-term outcomes, of preterm infants with lung disease. Delivering CPT in this population is not without risk, however, and the decision to undertake CPT interventions rely on effective assessment (Hough, 2008). Preterm infants present with multiple lung pathologies, (Gallacher et al, 2016) however not all of these are best treated using CPT. In preterm infants, CPT is thought to be most efficacious in treating alveolar collapse and consolidation, and not useful, or potentially harmful, in the management of interstitial lung disease (Hough, 2008). Differentiating between pathological processes using existing assessment tools such as auscultation and chest radiograph is challenging as these tools only provide subjective, non-specific and surrogate measurements of lung aeration and pathology (McAlinden et al, 2020). Physiotherapy- led lung ultrasound (LUS) has been recently proposed as a more accurate and objective way to image both regional lung aeration and lung pathology by the bedside without the potentially harmful radiation associated with other imaging techniques (Hansell et al, 2023; Hayward et al, 2021). Such imaging makes it theoretically possible to deliver individualised and targeted CPT, thereby improving effectiveness and minimising physiological burden. (Le Neindre et al, 2023) Despite its promise, physiotherapist-led LUS is considered an extended scope skill in Australia and further training and knowledge is required before it can be used safely and effectively. To date, physiotherapist-led LUS has been investigated in paediatric (Myszkowski, 2019; Shkurka & Nolann 2023) and adult cohorts (Hansell et al, 2023; Le Neindre et al, 2023) but similar research has yet to be undertaken in preterm infants. This study aims to investigate the use of LUS as a neonatal physiotherapy assessment tool to measure the effect of CPT in premature infants with lung collapse.

The primary purpose of this study is to examine the opinions of patients and their caregiver/support person on the clinical care that is provided following a diagnosis of stomach, oesophageal or bowel cancer. Secondary aims will determine the acceptability and preferences for the use of blood tests to monitor these cancers and explore factors that may affect acceptability. Who is it for? Participants in this study include adults who have received treatment for stomach, oesophageal, or bowel cancer at Flinders Medical Centre, Noarlunga Health Service, or The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. It will also include a caregiver or support person of their choosing. Study details: Eligible patients will be sent a study information pack inviting them and a caregiver/support person of their choosing to complete a survey. All patients who respond to this initial survey will be sent a letter approximately one month later inviting them to complete another survey. The surveys will contain items assessing participants’ unmet needs from previous clinical care experiences, their acceptability and preferences for blood tests to monitor gastrointestinal cancers, psychosocial impacts, health beliefs, preferences for treatment decision making, and trust in the cancer care team. This research will provide a better understanding of the unmet information and supportive care needs of South Australians affected by gastrointestinal cancer, including patients and their caregivers/support persons. We also aim to explore the trust and acceptability of clinical monitoring tools for gastrointestinal cancers, particularly blood tests. We anticipate that participants will have varying degrees of trust in the test, with their caregivers demonstrating similar levels of trust. It is predicted that certain factors will influence individuals’ acceptability of using blood tests for cancer monitoring, including their attitudes towards blood testing, trust in their cancer care team, and their willingness to engage with new medical technology.

The current study will examine the use of two mobile phone-based applications (Pi and Smiling Mind) that reportedly represent innovative approaches to mental health care. The aim of this study is to find out the impact of Pi app and Smiling Mind app on anxiety, resilience, and health related quality of life, which are key performance indicators in an exercise setting, using a sample of participants with varying physical activity levels against a waitlist control. The secondary aim is to find out how these apps can impact on psychosocial and physical health related factors.

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of using innovative patient-centred N-of-1 observational studies to identify personalised symptom patterns and triggers in individuals with long COVID. A series of N-of-1 observational studies with 10 participants will be conducted. Participants will complete brief questionnaires rating their symptoms and potential triggers three times daily for a period of 6 to 12 weeks using an electronic diary. They will receive highly personalised feedback about their data at the end of the study. Participants will be invited to discuss their experience of participation in the study during a post-study semi-structured interview.

New Frontiers 2 is a non-interventional clinical registry and biobank designed to study the treatment and outcomes of patients with Neurofibromatosis Type 2 related schwannomatosis (NF2) and other rare forms of schwannomatosis (SWN) in routine clinical practice. Who is it for? You may be eligible to join this program if you have been diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis Type 2 related schwannomatosis (NF2) or other rare forms of schwannomatosis (SWN) and are receiving routine clinical care at participating hospitals in Australia. Study details This is a prospective, non-interventional clinical registry paired with a biobank for collecting clinical data and biospecimens from patients. The registry will collect comprehensive data on disease presentation, surgical and systemic treatments, and multidisciplinary management. Biospecimens, including tumour tissue, CSF, and blood, will also be collected with appropriate consent to support translational research. The primary goal is to create a national registry that allows for the detailed study of SWN patients across Australia, fostering insights into disease characteristics and outcomes. It is hoped to support future translational research and registry-based clinical trials.

This project hypothesizes that neuroinflammation leads to changes in brain metabolites, especially glutamate, and changes in cerebral blood flow, which cause multisystem symptoms in ME/CFS and Long COVID patients. This project will investigate ME/CFS and Long COVID with or without POTS in female adults that are age between 18-70 years old. This project aims to explore the correlation between neuroinflammation, brain blood flow, metabolites in the hypothalamus, especially glutamate, and symptoms severity, This project seeks to understand the biological reasons that lead to ME/CFS and Long COVID symptoms which will help researchers develop specific diagnostic tests and develop new treatments.

Following completion of the pulmonary rehabilitation programme, benefits in exercise capacity, quality of life, and respiratory symptoms begin to decline unless people with chronic lung conditions continue to exercise. Adherence to supervised maintenance programmes is reported to be as low as 50% at 12 months following pulmonary rehabilitation and has been attributed to barriers such as exacerbations, anxiety, lack of social support, and difficulty accessing community exercise programmes. Unsupervised maintenance exercise may be more accessible and less costly than supervised maintenance exercise to promote continued exercise in the home and community. Online exercise videos using minimal equipment may be a promising strategy for improving adherence to self-efficacy for exercise during the maintenance phase of pulmonary rehabilitation, but have not yet been tested in people with chronic lung conditions. The research questions are: In the maintenance phase following completion of pulmonary rehabilitation, does an online exercise video increase physical activity and self-efficacy for exercise with unsupervised home exercise in people with chronic lung conditions? In the maintenance phase following completion of pulmonary rehabilitation, does an online exercise video maintain exercise capacity and quality of life in people with chronic lung conditions? in people with chronic lung conditions, what are their perspectives of using an online exercise video to pulmonary rehabilitation promote unsupervised home exercise in the maintenance phase following completion of pulmonary rehabilitation? Do perspectives vary with patient levels of self-efficacy for exercise and type of delivery of pulmonary rehabilitation?

While continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) and high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) are commonly used for treatment of infants with respiratory distress, the optimal level of CPAP/HFNC remains somewhat uncertain. Due to leaks occurring at the nostrils, the mouth and into the stomach, not all of the pressure generated by CPAP/HFNC is transmitted to the airway. Continuous measurement of the patient’s pharyngeal pressure could provide clinicians with important information. The proposed research is a feasibility study to measure the pharyngeal pressure in a convenience sample of up to 50 infants receiving CPAP/HFNC for the purpose of confirming the performance and safety of a new airway monitoring device. TGA-approved dual lumen gastric tubes will be modified to allow for airway pressure measurements in the pharyngeal region using a new airway pressure device (under development). The modified gastric tube will be used similar to regular gastric tubes, and pharyngeal pressures recorded over a 3-8 day period. The modified gastric tube will enable study participants to be fed as per usual clinical guidelines and facilitate enteral fluids/medication delivery as clinically required.