All Clinical Trials in Canada

G-SUMIT is a pilot, phase II,randomized controlled trial to evaluate the feasibility of performing a large-scale trial in patients undergoing surgery for first-time diagnosis of high grade glioma (HGG) in a surgically favorable anatomical location to answer the following: Does extending the margin of resection 1 cm beyond visible enhanced volume on MRI result in (a) an increase in overall survival? (b) result in a similar rate of "clinically-significant" neurological worsening during 30 days post surgery and quality of life at 6 and 12 months? Read Less

The goal of this trial is to test a debriefing protocol to improve non-technical skills (NTS) in medical students. The study aims to answer the following questions: * Does a debriefing intervention improve medical students' NTS? * Does the intervention have an impact on the students' performance in simulated scenarios? Participants in the study will be randomly assigned to one of the teams, each consisting of a trauma team leader and three assistants. The teams will rotate across four different scenarios, allowing participants to switch roles and act as team leaders. The intervention teams will be debriefed using the study protocol, while the control groups will receive standard technical feedback without focusing on NTS. The primary outcome measure will be the Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons (NOTSS) score, which is a validated assessment tool for NTS. Secondary outcome measures include the number of correct interventions performed in each scenario. The study will involve 40 medical students, and the sample size was determined based on previous studies and statistical considerations. A panel of health educators will define the debriefing protocol, and the trial has been approved by the McGill Research Ethics Board office. The study findings are expected to contribute significantly to the training of providers of trauma care for children worldwide. By exploring the impact of debriefing on NTS in pediatric trauma education, this project aims to fill a critical gap in current training models. Read Less

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common cause of childhood physical disability. Early CP diagnosis and intervention are crucial to improving outcomes in these patients. Constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) has become a standard therapeutic intervention for children with unilateral CP. CIMT utilizes restraining of the unaffected upper limb to stimulate the use of the paretic upper limb enhancing neuroplasticity in the affected cerebral hemisphere. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a safe non-invasive technique that stimulates the brain using repetitive magnetic pulses to enhance neuroplasticity. TMS has been shown to improve symptoms of children with neurodevelopmental disorders such as CP. It is predicted that a combined therapy that uses CIMT and TMS is could improve mobility in children with unilateral CP. To determine if combined therapy is beneficial to children with CP and if use of this therapy is feasible for families, the investigators would like to conducted a feasibility trial. In this trial the investigators will enrol 10 children who have unilateral CP, the participants will either receive: 1. CIMT and TMS or; 2. CIMT and fake TMS, fake TMS consist of a child sitting near the TMS machine but not receiving any TMS. The aim of this project is to determine if it is feasible to conduct a large randomized control trial to compare the effects of combined CIMT and TMS versus CIMT and fake TMS.The investigators also hope that by conducting this trial they can identify any benefits that the addition of TMS may have in children with CP. Read Less

To determine the effects of aerobic exercise on hippocampal volumes and severity of psychotic symptoms in a population of psychosis patients compared to healthy age/gender matched volunteers. Psychosis patients often suffer from a number of cognitive difficulties, including poor memory function, poor problem-solving capacity and difficulties with attention and concentration. Poor fitness and associated neurovascular deficits may arise from various sources, including poor mental health, adverse side effects of antipsychotic medications and independent cardiovascular deficits that may be due to neurodevelopmental abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia. These factors are likely contributing to markedly increased stroke risk and early mortality. These problems are not well addressed by current clinical treatments, nor is neurovascular stroke risk readily or accurately detected in clinic.In contrast, evidence from aging research strongly suggests that increased cardiovascular fitness may provide numerous cognitive benefits by promoting brain growth, particularly in the frontal lobes and the hippocampi, while reducing the risk of stroke. The current study will measure the effects of aerobic exercise on brain volumes in a population of chronic psychosis patients to determine if 1) hippocampal volumes increase in response to exercise and 2) if parallel improvements in cognitive functioning occur. Additionally, baseline and follow-up stroke risk will be assessed using a novel non-invasive approach of retinal imaging to determine the presence of underlying neurovascular pathology. Read Less

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia (AMP® SCZ) is a large international collaboration to develop algorithms using a set of clinical and cognitive assessments, multi-modal biomarkers, and clinical endpoints that can be used to predict the trajectories and outcomes of individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis and to advance the testing of pharmacological interventions for CHR individuals in need. The goal is to accurately predict which individuals are likely to remit, experience an acute psychotic episode, or have intermediate outcomes that feature persistent attenuated psychotic and/or mood symptoms along with functional impairment. The prediction algorithms will have the potential to serve as early indicators of treatment efficacy in CHR persons. The AMP SCZ research program is made up of the Psychosis Risk Evaluation, Data Integration, and Computational Technologies - Data Processing, Analysis and Coordination Center (PREDICT-DPACC) and two clinical research networks, the Psychosis-Risk Outcomes Network (ProNET) and the Trajectories and Predictors in the Clinical High Risk for Psychosis Population: Prediction Scientific Global Consortium (PRESCIENT) networks. The two clinical research networks will recruit a large cohort of CHR young people aged 12-30 years (n=1,977) and healthy control (HC) participants (n=640) across 42 participating investigative sites from 13 countries. CHR participants will complete screening, baseline assessments and a battery of follow-up assessments across 18 - 24 months. HC participants will complete screening and baseline assessments and a subset (5 per site) will complete month 2, 12 and 24 visits. Read Less

Immunotherapy with agents stimulating the immune system to act against cancer are now a new standard of care in various cancers as lung cancer and melanoma, but also bladder cancer, kidney cancer and head \& neck cancer. However, even though a subset of patients derives long-term benefit from these agents, depending of cancer type still at least half of patients do not respond to these new drugs. Our understanding of possible factors predicting whether a patient might actually benefit from immunotherapy is poor. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are gases exhaled with a person's breath, which are released into the lung from blood and bacteria and therefore can give information about infections as well as inflammation and possibly cancer cells in a person's body. Breath analysis of these VOCs with special devices called electronic noses (eNose) generate a specific electric signals patterns called breathprints. There is early evidence that specific breathprints can actually help to select patients who will be likely to benefit from immunotherapy. This study is being undertaken in an effort to evaluate breathprint analysis as a potential predicting factor for benefit from immunotherapy, so that treatment selection can further be improved. This study is designed to help us identify the role of breathprint analysis to better select patients for immunotherapy. Read Less

This study is aimed at assessing the effectiveness of a novel liver specific nerve block in improving pain control during painful liver interventional radiology procedures including liver tumoral ablation and trans arterial chemoembolization, two procedures aimed at controlling liver tumors, but that can be associated with significant pain. This novel hepatic specific nerve block was designed by us and initial retrospective results suggests it might help in controlling such liver procedural derived pain. The study was designed to compare the liver block to a sham procedure in a blinded context and to follow the participants over three days post-procedure to asses for pain levels. Read Less

This study aims to build a predictive algorithm that identifies mother-newborn dyads most at risk of death or complications in the 6 weeks after birth. The investigators will conduct a multi-site cohort study with 7,000 dyads in Uganda and engage with local stakeholders (e.g., patients, healthcare workers, and health policy-makers) to develop an evidence-based bundle of interventions that address key practice gaps and the critical factors leading to death and complications in these dyads. In the investigator's epidemiological study of post-delivery post-discharge outcomes in 3,236 dyads in Uganda (2017-2020), results indicated that most newborn and maternal readmissions were due to infectious illness (i.e. sepsis, surgical site infections, malaria), and primarily occurred early in the post-discharge period. Thus, the focus of this study will be identifying interventions that target these common and early outcomes, for both mothers and newborns, using WHO recommendations, patient and caregiver experiences, and stakeholder recommendations. If successful, results will inform the next steps of this project, which is the external validation of the model and clinical evaluation of a personalized approach to improving health outcomes and health-seeking behaviour for mothers and newborns. Read Less

Teriparatide (PTH) is the only bone formation therapy that has been approved for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis in Canada. Osteoporosis is currently diagnosed using a bone mineral density (BMD) scan, which measures the amount of mineral (calcium etc) in bones (the higher the amount of mineral, the lower the fracture risk). Although BMD is linked to bone strength and is used to measure fracture risk, it does not give information on bone structure (called bone geometry) which can also tell us a great deal about fracture risks. Clinical trials have shown that teriparatide increases BMD at the lumbar spine and total hip, while BMD at the forearm may decrease after 20 months of therapy. However, bone biopsies of the pelvis done on people taking teriparatide show improvement of bone geometry (ie bone thickness and increased trabeculae (small interconnecting rods of bone), suggesting that a change in bone geometry at the wrist may be occurring as well. Currently, there is a new technology, high resolution pQCT (HR-pQCT) that can assess bone geometry without a biopsy. Since bone strength is affected both by BMD and bone structure (as well as other material properties), our group is interested in examining changes in bone geometry at the radius and tibia in men and women with osteoporosis who receives 24 months of teriparatide therapy. The investigators believe that this new approach of measuring bone strength will help us better understand the mechanisms of therapeutic efficacy of teriparatide. In addition, measuring indices of bone strength such as the material composition (bone mineral content or BMD) and structural properties of bone (size and shape, and microarchitecture) may provide more data about the mechanisms of how teriparatide treatment can decrease fracture risk. In the end, this data will benefit and improve patient care by allowing us to show patients and their providers that whether BMD increases, decreases or stay the same, there are changes in their bone geometric structure with teriparatide therapy that increases bone strength. Read Less

The purpose of the present study is to follow unpaid caregivers of ABI survivors in Nova Scotia over time to learn more about their experiences. The study is funded by the Government of Nova Scotia (i.e. Department of Health and Wellness). The present longitudinal cohort study will help increase knowledge about ABI caregivers at a provincial level. Findings will also be used in developing future interventions to help caregivers in this population. The goals of the research study are: 1. To understand the natural experiences of unpaid caregivers over time. More specifically, the investigators hope to learn about the experiences of unpaid caregivers of acquired brain injury survivors in Nova Scotia. 2. To examine the connection between study demographic variables (e.g. the amount of time spent caregiving in hours per week), and psychological outcome variables (e.g. caregiver burden). 3. To learn about the relationship between psychological outcome variables (e.g. psychological distress and savouring). 4. To provide a platform for future studies using the Trials within Cohort (TwiC) study design. Read Less

The purpose of the present study is to conduct a two-arm Randomized Control Trial (RCT) comparing individuals receiving the 90Second Caregiver health letter, with a usual care (routine care received by caregivers) control group. The goals of the present study are: * To evaluate the effectiveness of the 90Second Caregiver health letter in improving caregiver's self-efficacy (primary outcome), savouring, and quality of life (secondary outcomes). * To evaluate the effectiveness of the 90Second Caregiver health letter in reducing caregiver's psychological strain and caregiver burden (secondary outcomes). * To examine the impact of levels of engagement with the 90Second Caregiver health letter on primary and secondary outcomes. * To assess the usability of the 90Second Caregiver health letter, as it relates to the relevance of topic, user friendliness, and appropriateness of the readability levels. * To evaluate psychometric properties of self-constructed measures in 90Second newsletter. Read Less

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare the effectiveness of upper-body surface cooling with whole-body surface cooling on exercise performance while wearing firefighter clothing in the heat. The main question it aims to answer is: • which cooling protocol best prevents an increase in core temperature during exercise in the heat? Participants will be asked to participate three times in a 60-minute exposure (to 40 degrees C, 40% relative humidity) in which they conduct three work/rest periods including 15 minutes of stepping exercise (20 steps/minute) and 5 minutes of rest. The following three conditions will include: * Control: no cooling garments * Upper-body cooling: cold water-perfused cooling vest * Whole-body cooling: cold water-perfused cooling pants and cooling vest Read Less