All Clinical Trials in Canada

The ophthalmology clientele is vulnerable in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic because of their age and comorbidities. Specifically, elderly patients aged 65 and above with glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, or diabetic retinopathy require regular follow-ups and commonly suffer from additional comorbidities. Further, because of the proximity between the patient and health care personnel during ophthalmological examinations, the risk of infection during visits is significant. The delicate balance between the risk of exposure to COVID-19 and visual loss in delaying cases is a psychological stressor to both patients and clinicians. A cross-sectional study accumulating the data of 425 patients aged 65 and above with various eye diseases will be conducted. Participants will be presented with a set of online questionnaires designed to collect data on health-related quality of life (HRQOL), vision-related quality of life (VRQOL), depression symptoms, anxiety, sleep quality, community integration, and their experience with tele-consultations. This study can help quantify the collateral impact of the COVID-19 beyond the direct impact of the virus, to improve future quality of care guidelines on non-COVID-19 conditions, and to help plan patient prioritization once restrictions are eased. Read Less

The purpose of this research study is to look at how safe and useful a drug called azacitidine in combination with a drug called venetoclax, is in people with accelerated or blast phase BRC-ABL negative myeloproliferative neoplasms. Read Less

Traditional training of surgical technical skills relies on mentorship from experienced surgeons, who continuously evaluate and change trainee performance to prevent errors and potential patient harm by providing verbal instructions. These educators may also pause the procedure, explaining the risks associated with the trainee's actions, and may personally demonstrate proper techniques to the students. Studies examining pausing while providing medical care outline that these approaches allow for learning. An artificial intelligent (AI) tutoring system, the Intelligent Continuous Expertise Monitoring System (ICEMS), improves learning in a surgical simulated operation by providing trainees with verbal instructions upon error identification. However, the effect of including a pause during this AI teaching has not been studied. Therefore, the ICEMS post-error identification methodology has been altered to include a pause with the intelligent tutor voice instruction. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of pausing on surgical skill acquisition and transfer among pre-medical and medical students. This will be done by comparing their performance in repeated simulated tumour resection tasks. Read Less

Lung cancer is the chief cause of cancer death. The new standard-of-care (SOC) in operable lung cancer combines chemotherapy and an immune-stimulating drug before the surgery (neoadjuvant approach). This results in a large increase in complete cancer clearance rates compared to chemotherapy alone (±30% with combination vs ±4% with chemotherapy alone), leading to much better long-term survival and probably many more cures. However, most still don't achieve complete clearance, and a few have increases in, or spread of, their tumors while on treatment. Therefore, we need to understand why some patients benefit (responders) and others don't benefit (non-responders) on an immunotherapy-based treatment. Also, some patients unpredictably develop severe immune-type side effects related to the immunotherapy drug, although such side effects may be associated with improved anti-cancer effects. In short, the same treatment can result in complete cancer clearance in one patient, and in a worst-case scenario may result in severe toxicity or fail to control spread/growth thus precluding surgery. The immune system obviously plays a key role in both benefit and harm, yet most of the research in this field has focused only on the cancer. We plan an in-depth study in 60 patients, focusing on the cancer as well as the patient's immune system, pre-surgery. This will enable us to identify factors predicting complete cancer clearance, and the occurrence of immune-type side effects. Using highly sophisticated resources available to us here in London, we will develop predictive models enabling better patient management (including possible avoidance of surgery), and identification of key biological differences between major responders and non-responders, to highlight important new targets for the development of even newer and better therapies. Read Less

The primary objective of the study is to create a small dataset of regional pulmonary strain values in patients suffering from pulmonary diseases under mechanical ventilation in an intensive care setting. Hypothesis: The analysis of lung ultrasonographic sequences using speckle-tracking allows the determination of local pleural strain in 4 predetermined pulmonary areas in mechanically ventilated patients suffering from pulmonary diseases. Read Less

Traditional postoperative care has been challenged recently to improve and speedup recovery (including the return of bowel function) such that patients can be discharged to home more quickly. This approach includes earlier mobilization of the patient, and introducing solid food sooner. Additionally, there is evidence in adults to suggest that "sham feeding" by chewing gum may also speed up bowel recovery so the patient may tolerate a solid diet earlier. The aim of this study is to determine if gum chewing can enhance bowel recovery in children who undergo abdominal surgery. Read Less

This is a prospective randomized multi-center study which will compare acute fluid resuscitation using a colloid strategy (LR + 5% Albumin) to a crystalloid strategy (LR alone), in adults with an acute burn involving at least 25% of their total body surface area. Read Less

The purpose of this biological study is to provide Dr. Samuel Fortin's laboratory with a continuous supply of blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) so that he can pursue research on the potential beneficial effects of monoglyceride omega-3 fatty acids on the resolution of inflammation. Read Less

This is a multi-center, prospective clinical trial to assess the effect of TFL for the lithotripsy of kidney stones. Read Less

To examine the impact of health determinants at the individual (e.g. health related behaviors) and societal level (e.g. environmental factors, health related policy, quality of health systems) on health outcomes (e.g. death, non-communicable disease development) across a range of socioeconomic and health resource settings. Additional components of this study will examine genetic factors for non-communicable diseases. This will be examined both through a cross sectional component, and prospectively (cohort component). Read Less

This prospective study will examine whether transient maternal hyperoxygenation is useful as a diagnostic test to more accurately detect TGA patients with poor vs. good neonatal intra-cardiac mixing of blood, based on the in-utero response to oxygen exposure. This study is Health Canada regulated Read Less

Congenital heart disease (CHD) is predominantly detected before birth. Using echocardiography and MRI, this study will determine whether acute exposure to maternal hyperoxygenation (MH) leads to measurable increases in fetal cerebral oxygenation from baseline in fetuses with CHD. The study aims to determine whether MH could be used as a chronic in-utero treatment strategy to promote brain growth/maturation to birth and to improve postnatal neurodevelopmental outcomes, and identify the types of CHD most likely to benefit from chronic MH. Read Less