7 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
This research seeks to establish a neonatal DNA Tissue Bank to find out if differences in small segments of DNA predispose babies to Chronic Lung Disease (CLD), Periventricular Brain Injury (PVI), Necrotizing Enterocolitis (NEC), or Hypoxic Respiratory Failure (HRF).
This study traces the history of neonatology in the United States from the 1960s to the present with particular attention to the ways in which neonatologists developed criteria to make treatment decisions. I will be using oral history interviews as one source for a book that will document developments in the history of neonatology. I will identify potential research subjects through their publications in the field of neonatology and through word of mouth. I will locate them via the contact information provided in their publications or through an internet search.
The purpose of this study is to study how people make decisions regarding delivery room management for infants born extremely premature when survival and long term outcomes are uncertain. The hypothesis is that the way in which information is presented will impact decisions. There have been many advances in neonatal care in recent decades. However, the investigators do not know if these children will grow up to be healthy or if they will have problems with mental retardation, behavior or physical handicaps. In these circumstances, where the medical profession cannot predict what sort of life a child will have, parents have a choice of having intensive care started or of allowing the baby to die naturally. The age most often cited by physicians at which this care is optional and under parental discretion is 23 weeks gestation. The purpose of this study was to ask people, recruited through the world wide web, what they would want for the doctor to do in the case of a hypothetical 23 week premature delivery in order to evaluate the decision process and the presence of autonomous choice. This study had two parts. The first part, presented outcome information in 2 different ways -either as survival and lack of severe disability or as mortality and presence of severe disability. The results of the first part have been published (Message Framing and Perinatal Decisions, Pediatrics, 2008). The second part, investigated whether the way in which the way in which delivery room management options were presented- either as agreeing with a course of action or opting out- impacted resuscitation decisions. This part was administered as a separate survey to a different sample of participants at a later date. The remainder of the questionnaires asked demographic and opinion questions as a means to assess variables that may influence how people respond to the information they receive.
The study objective is to decrease neonatal mortality and morbidity by elucidating the etiology of system failures during perioperative care. In Aim 1 the investigators will use a novel event discovery method, based on the construct of the nonroutine event (NRE), to efficiently capture dysfunctional clinical microsystem attributes and potentially dangerous conditions. A NRE is defined as any event that is perceived by care providers or skilled observers as a deviation from optimal care based on the clinical situation. In Aim 2, the investigators will perform a comparative analysis of prospectively collected NRE data to the data collected by conventional event reporting methodologies. In Aim 3 the investigators will collaborate with Primary Children's Hospital (PCH) in Salt Lake City, UT to conduct practical pilot testing of tools and measures developed and refined in the first two Aims. Products from Aims 1 \& 2 will include: 1. a taxonomy of NREs and outcomes for perioperative neonates; 2. neonatal Comprehensive Open-Ended Non-routine Event Survey (NCONES) data collection tool; 3. comparisons of 5 established event reporting systems, including their rates, costs and benefits; and 4. a guide to prototype neonatal safety surveillance and risk prediction for hospitals and NICUs. Aim 3 will capitalize on PCH's robust network of NICUs, neonatologists, and patient-level outcome data to conduct a pilot implementation evaluation of the methods and tools developed and refined in Aims 1-2.
Vermont Oxford Network maintains a database for live born infants \<=1500 grams or \<=29 weeks gestational age who are born at participating hospitals or admitted to them within 28 days of birth, regardless of where in the hospital the infant receives care.
Newborn babies can develop low blood sugar (glucose) which can lead to brain injury and poor developmental outcomes. Therefore, it is important to accurately measure the blood glucose in babies. One way to measure the blood glucose is to test blood from the baby's heel with a bedside device called a point of care glucometer. This method is very common and easy; however, multiple factors can lead to an inaccurate reading. A false low reading may require additional blood testing and admission to the NICU. A false high reading could result in the medical provider missing the diagnosis of low blood glucose. Our team wants to know if there is a difference between blood glucose measurements taken from warmed and un-warmed heels of infants. Blood flow farther away from the heart, such as in the feet and heels, may be less than the rest of the body, and might move more slowly. This could cause the glucose level to be lower in the feet and heels. Therefore, sampling blood from an un-warmed heel may result in a falsely low glucose reading. There is some research that suggests warming the heel increases blood flow to the area; however, only one study that we know of has evaluated differences in blood glucose readings from warmed and un-warmed heels. They found significantly higher blood glucose readings from warmed heels compared to un-warmed heels in 57 babies. However, these babies were part of a larger study comparing different diets on blood glucose levels, and the heels were warmed using warm water which is no longer a current practice. The goal of this study is to compare the capillary blood glucose levels from warmed and un-warmed heels in about 100 infants who are breast and/or formula fed using the current practice of warming heels with gel heat packs. The null hypothesis is that there will be no difference between capillary blood glucose levels sampled from an infants warmed and un-warmed heel. The alternative hypothesis is that capillary blood glucose levels sampled from warmed heels will be higher than those samples from un-warmed heels.
Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) is a vascular disease affecting the retinas (back of the eye) of low birth weight infants. Although it can be treated effectively if diagnosed early, it continues to be a leading cause of childhood blindness in the United States and throughout the world. The investigators feel that this study will result in specific knowledge discovery about ROP, as well as general knowledge about how image-based data and genetic data can be combined to better understand clinical disease. Participants will be recruited from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at OHSU, along with 4 collaborating institutions (William Beaumont Hospital, Stanford University, University of Illinois Chicago and University of Utah). Hospitalized infants who receive ROP screening examinations for routine care will be eligible for this study, and will be offered the opportunity to participate. Subjects who provide informed consent will have clinical data from routine care collected along with demographic characteristics, results from routine ROP screening examinations, presence of systemic disease or risk factors. Retinal photographs will be taken during these routine eye exams, using a commercially-available camera that has been FDA-cleared for taking pictures from retinas of premature infants. These retinal pictures do not contain any identifiable patient information, and are taken as routine standard of care. The long-term goal of this research is to establish a quantitative framework for retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) care based on clinical, imaging, genetic, and informatics principles. The investigators have previously recruited and rigorously phenotyped and genotyped a large study cohort, including implementation of a novel reference standard diagnosis; and built a world-class research consortium for image, genetic, and bioinformatics analysis.