Transforming health care and outcomes for children with rare diseases is difficult within the current health care system. There is great variation in care delivery, inadequate and slow application of existing evidence, and ineffective use of available data to generate new knowledge. Individual care centers have inadequate numbers of patients for robust learning and improvement. In order to redesign the system, changes must take place at multiple levels, including the patient and family, clinician, practice and the network. The purpose of this project is to design, develop, and test further refinements to an improvement and research network focused on HLHS, the most severe congenital heart defect, and to use a registry to simultaneously improve clinical care, redesign care delivery systems and to conduct quality improvement, health services, outcomes, and comparative effectiveness research. The purpose of this initiative, specifically, is to improve care and outcomes for infants with HLHS by: 1) expanding the established NPC-QIC national registry to gather clinical care process, outcome, and developmental data on infants with HLHS between diagnosis and 12 months of age, 2) improving implementation of consensus standards, tested by teams, into everyday practice across pediatric cardiology centers, and 3) engaging parents as partners in improving care and outcomes. We utilize a quality improvement methodology, known as the adapted learning collaborative model, which expedites the implementation of tools and strategies that facilitate changes such as systematic care coordination, cardiovascular monitoring, and nutritional monitoring into every day practice. The NPC-QIC registry is used to document the impact of these changes on various care processes and outcomes (e.g., mortality rate, readmissions, and weight gain).
This study is for patients that have been diagnosed with High Risk B-Lymphoblastic Leukemia (HR B-ALL). The investigational drug in this study is Ruxolitinib. The purpose of this study is to find out if the study drug, ruxolitinib, in combination with standard HR B-ALL treatment is safe and effective in children, adolescents, and young adults with HR B-ALL. Participants can expect to be in this study for the treatment period of approximately 26 months (females) or 38 months (males) plus the post-treatment follow-up. Subjects are considered on study during the post-treatment follow-up period until the subject is deceased, lost to follow-up, or until the study is completed. Subjects in this study will be followed until all enrolled subjects have been followed for 3 years from Day 1 or are deceased or lost to follow-up.
Pain control after tonsillectomy is imperative but often difficult. Current post-operative pain medication regimens include opioid analgesics and are often still inadequate. Though not standard of care, it is our practice to prescribe a single dose of oral steroid medication on the third day after surgery, when pain and swelling are at their peak, in order to assist with pain control and reduce opioid consumption. Though this practice has a rational theoretical basis, there is no prospective data supporting or discounting it. We aim to compare pain control, opioid consumption, and complication rates in children receiving post-operative steroids versus those who do not.
The study team is recruiting 20 adults with spasticity due to chronic stroke and 20 adults with no neurological injuries for a 4 day study over 1 week. In people with chronic stroke, one of the most common and disabling problems is spasticity (increased muscle tone or muscle stiffness). The purpose of this research study is to examine effects of dry needling on the nervous system (pathways between the muscle, spinal cord, and brain) in people with spasticity due to chronic stroke. Dry needling is a procedure in which a thin, stainless steel needle is inserted into your skin to produce a muscle twitch response. It is intended to release a knot in your muscle and relieve pain.
The total study duration is 4 visits over one week. The first visit will take about 1.5 hours, during which the study team will determine the best electrode placement and create a removeable cast of your arm or leg to aid in placing electrodes in the next visits. The second visit will take about 3 hours, during which dry needling will take place, and the fourth and fifth visits will take about 1.5 hour. During all visits you will be asked to participate in examinations of reflexes (muscle responses to non-invasive nerve stimulation) and arm/leg function.
In current practice, options for venous and lymphatic malformations remain limited. Recently an oral medication, sirolimus, has been found to benefit patients when taken once or twice a day for several months. Unfortunately there are many side effects associated with this medication, some of which can be severe including, neutropenia, oral ulcerations, and lab abnormalities. The purpose of this study is to determine if once weekly dosed sirolimus will be effective for the treatment of venous and lymphatic malformations. Additionally, the study will evaluate patient satisfaction and identify adverse effects. Participants will be on the medication for 6 months with an option to continue after this time period.
Pediatric traumatic injury is the leading cause of death and morbidity among US adolescents and are associated with mental health and health risk outcomes, including posttraumatic stress and depression, deficits in physical recovery, social functioning and quality of life, which if unaddressed, may contribute to increased use of health care services. In 2015 our team launched the Trauma Resilience and Recovery Program (TRRP) at Medical University of South Carolina, a scalable and sustainable, technology-enhanced, multidisciplinary stepped model of care – one of the few in the US - that provides early intervention and direct services to improve access to evidence-based mental health care after traumatic injury for children, adults and families. We have found this model of care to be feasible and acceptable to adolescent patients (ages 12-17) at each level of service. TRRP includes 3 major steps: (1) in-hospital education, brief risk reduction session, and tracking patients' emotional recovery via an automated text-messaging system, (2) a 30-day screen via telephone to identify patients who are good candidates for psychological treatment, and (3) providing referral to best-practice telehealth-based or in-person assessment and treatment. We have partnered with three accredited Level I and II pediatric trauma centers, Prisma-Health Upstate, Children's of Alabama, and Boston Children's Hospital, and propose a multi-site hybrid 1 effectiveness-implementation randomized controlled trial with 300 adolescent (ages 12-17) traumatic injury patients to assess the extent to which TRRP promotes improvement in quality of life and emotional recovery and gather preliminary data on the potential for TRRP to be implemented in other Level I trauma centers. This study will provide valuable data on the efficacy, preliminary effectiveness and potential for implementation of an innovative, cost-effective, sustainable technology-enhanced intervention designed to address the unique needs of adolescent injury patients and mitigate short- and long-term impact of injury on mental health, quality of life, and overall well-being.
This study is examining the use, safety and performance of an investigational, meaning not approved for commercial use or sale by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) device called Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR). The TMVR is a device used to treat mitral valve disease in patients with heart failure (weakened heart muscle). The device is placed by a non surgical approach using a delivery catheter (hollow tube) placed in your blood vessel at the top of your leg and directed up to your heart. This five year study will include a screening process to determine you meet eligibility criteria. If you qualify you will then be seen for a baseline visit, undergo the procedure to place the device, day after procedure, at hospital discharge, 1,3,6, 12 months, then yearly for up to 5 years. Study related testing includes physical exams, medication review, 6 minute hall walk test, questionnaires, blood work, CT scans, electrocardiogram or ECG (recording of your heart's electrical activity) and echocardiogram (ultrasound test of your heart).
The study team is recruiting 25 adults with spasticity due to chronic stroke for a 4 day study. In people with chronic stroke, one of the most common and disabling problems is spasticity (increased muscle tone or muscle stiffness). The purpose of this research study is to examine effects of dry needling on the nervous system (pathways between the muscle, spinal cord, and brain) in people with spasticity due to chronic stroke. Dry needling is a procedure in which a thin, stainless steel needle is inserted into the skin to produce a muscle twitch response. It is intended to release a knot in a person's muscle and relieve pain.
The total study duration is 3 visits over 4 days. The first visit will last about 3 hours, and the second and third visits will last about 1.5 hours. Dry needling will take place on the first visit only. During each visit the participant will be asked to participate in examinations of reflexes (muscle responses to non-invasive nerve stimulation) and leg function.
This study is for subjects that have been diagnosed with AML (acute myeloid leukemia) and MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome). This study is testing an "investigational" (not yet FDA approved) study drug called Sea-CD70. This study will find out if the drug is safe and tolerable, and find out the maximum tolerated dose (highest dose of a drug or treatment that does not cause unacceptable side effects) or recommended dose for the next phase of clinical study. The subject will be given the study drug in 28 day cycles. At any given visit, the subject may undergo procedures, such as a physical exam, blood samples, ECG (electrocardiogram), or a bone marrow exam. The subject may remain in the study for up to approximately 3 years.
This study is for patients who have been diagnosed with relapsed (the disease has gotten worse after a period of improvement) or refractory (the disease does not respond to treatment) Epstein-Barr Virus-Positive (EBV+) lymphomas.
The investigational drug in this study is Nanatinostat. Investigational means it is not approved by the United States' Food and Drug Administration (US FDA). Nanatinostat is a tablet that will be taken by mouth once a day.
The purpose of this research study is to determine the effectiveness and safety of the combination therapy, nanatinostat and valganciclovir, on treating lymphoma cancers. Valganciclovir is an approved anti-viral drug (a drug that fights against virus in your body), which has been used in the prevention and treatment of infection caused by a virus called cytomegalovirus (CMV), which is similar to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). The safety and effectiveness of nanatinostat on its own will also be reviewed in a small subset of patients.
Participants can expect to receive treatment until disease progression, unacceptable toxicity/ side effects, or participants withdraw. Participants can expect to be in follow up for up to 5 years.