Wounds and Injuries

This research is being done to determine if investigators can change skin from one type to another. Specifically, investigators are interested in making normal skin into the thicker skin found on our palms and soles.

Background: Millions of people each year sustain injuries, have tumors surgically removed, or are born with defects that require complex reconstructive surgeries to repair. In the case of hand, forearm, or arm amputation, prostheses only provide less than optimal motor function and no sensory feedback. However, hand and arm transplantation is a means to restore the appearance, anatomy, and function of a native hand. Although over 70 hand transplants have been performed to date and good functional results have been achieved, widespread clinical use has been limited due to adverse effects of life-long and high-dose immunosuppression needed to prevent graft rejection. Risks include infection, cancer, and metabolic problems, all of which can greatly affect recipients' quality of life, make the procedure riskier, and jeopardize the potential benefits of hand transplantation. Study Design: This non-randomized, Phase II clinical trial will document the use of a new immunomodulatory protocol (aka - Pittsburgh Protocol, Starzl Protocol) for establishing hand transplantation as a safe and effective reconstructive treatment for upper extremity amputations by minimizing maintenance immunosuppression therapy in unilateral and bilateral hand/forearm transplant patients. This protocol combines lymphocyte depletion with donor bone marrow cell infusion and has enabled graft survival using low doses of a single immunosuppressive drug followed by weaning of treatment. Initially designed for living-related solid organ donation, this regimen has been adapted for use with grafts donated by deceased donors. The investigators propose to perform 30 human hand transplants employing this novel protocol. Specific Aims: 1) To establish hand transplantation as a safe and effective reconstructive strategy for the treatment of upper extremity amputations; 2) To reduce the risk of rejection and enable allograft survival while minimizing the requirement for long-term high dose multi-drug immunosuppression. Significance of Research: Hand transplantation could help upper extremity amputees recover functionality, self-esteem, and the capability to reintegrate into family and social life as "whole" individuals. The protocol offers the potential for minimizing the morbidity of maintenance immunosuppression, thereby beneficially shifting the risk/benefit ratio of this life-enhancing procedure and enabling widespread clinical application of hand transplantation.

This study is designed to help decide how much intravenous (IV) fluid should be given to pediatric trauma patients. No standard currently exists for managing fluids in critically ill pediatric trauma patients, and many fluid strategies are now in practice. For decades, trauma patients got high volumes of IV fluid. Recent studies in adults show that patients actually do better by giving less fluid. The investigators do not know if this is true in children and this study is designed to answer that question and provide guidelines for IV fluid management in children after trauma.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the overall use of the WounDx medical device in a clinical setting, such as a hospital. The WounDx device is experimental and not yet approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). WounDx uses information about a patient's wound to generate a report that a surgeon may use to help determine when to close or not close the wound. The final decision to close the wound remains with the surgeon. The results from this pilot trial will inform a larger pivotal trial.

This unblinded Phase II clinical trial will test the effects of individualized acupuncture treatments offered in extant acupuncture practices in the community; practitioners will have had at least 5 years of experience plus additional training provided by the study. Veterans with diagnosed symptoms of Gulf War Illness will be randomized to either six months of biweekly acupuncture treatments (group 1, n=100) or 2 months of waitlist followed by weekly acupuncture treatments (group 2, n=100). Measurements were taken at baseline, 2, 4 and 6 months. The primary outcome is the SF-36 physical component scale score (SF-36P).

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a medically tailored post-operative meal delivery program on surgical outcomes and metabolic lab markers in orthopaedic trauma patients. Patients will have 12 days of meals and shakes delivered to their house through our partnership with Meals on Wheels. Metabolic lab values will be drawn at the 2 week and 6 week post-op visits. All patients will be followed for up to 1 year postoperatively.

Many patients suffer from traumatic burns and current treatments do not increase the regenerative potential of either skin grafts or the remaining uninjured skin. There is a need to develop treatments to accelerate and improve healing of burn injuries. More research is needed to evaluate the role of 4-AP, a promising new agent with an excellent safety profile, on wound and burn healing. The investigational treatment will be used to test the hypothesis that 4-AP accelerates burn healing in traumatically burned patients.

The use of handheld arterial 'stethoscopes' (continuous wave Doppler devices) are ubiquitous in clinical practice. However, most users have received no formal training in their use or the interpretation of the returned data. This leads to delays in diagnosis and errors in diagnosis. The investigators intend to create a novel machine-learning algorithm to assist clinicians in the use of this data. This study will allow the investigators to collect sound files from the use of the devices and compare the algorithms output to established, existing vascular testing. There will be no invasive procedures, and use of these stethoscopes is part of routine clinical care. If successful, this data and algorithm will be later deployed via smartphone app for point of case testing in a separate study

Rationale: Trauma is a massive global health issue. Many training programmes have been developed to help physicians in the initial management of trauma patients. Among these programmes, Advanced Trauma Life Support® (ATLS®) is the most popular, having trained over one million physicians worldwide. Despite its widespread use, there are no controlled trials showing that ATLS® improves patient outcomes. Multiple systematic reviews emphasise the need for such trials. Aim: To compare the effects of ATLS® training with standard care on outcomes in adult trauma patients. Trial Population: Adult trauma patients presenting to the emergency department of a participating hospital. Eligibility Criteria: Hospitals are secondary or tertiary hospitals in India that admit or refer/transfer for admission at least 400 patients with trauma per year. Clusters are one or more units of physicians providing initial trauma care in the emergency department of tertiary hospitals in India. Patients participants are adult trauma patients who presents to the emergency department of participating hospitals and are admitted or transferred for admission. Ethical Considerations: The study will use an opt-out consent approach for in-hospital collection of routinely recorded data, in which consent is presumed unless actively declined. Informed consent for non-routinely recorded data including out of hospital follow up will be obtained. Patients who are unconscious or lack a legally authorized representative will be included under a waiver of informed consent. Note that consent here refers to consent to data collection, as it will not be possible for patients to opt out from being subjected to the intervention. This approach is justified because the trial can be considered to involve only minimal risk and the data collection is non-invasive and mostly involve extracting routinely collected data from medical records. Funding: Swedish Research Council (reg. no. 2023-03128), Laerdal Foundation (reg. no. 2023-0297). Special considerations: This trial is not yet fully funded. The Trial Management Group has decided to proceed with the trial with the expectation that additional funding will be secured. The Joint Trial Steering and Data Monitoring Committee will be informed of the funding status at each meeting. If funding is not secured, the trial will be stopped. This will likely result in an underpowered trial. The justification for this decision is that the intervention is considered standard of care in many countries and the data collection is considered minimal risk. There is therefore a very small risk of harm to patient participants, but a potential direct benefit to those.

Bleeding from intra-abdominal injuries is a leading cause of traumatic deaths in children. Abdominal CT is the reference standard test for diagnosing intra-abdominal injuries. Compelling reasons exist, however, to both aggressively evaluate injured children for intra-abdominal injuries with CT and to limit abdominal CT evaluation to solely those at non-negligible risk. The focused assessment sonography for trauma (FAST) examination can help focus patient evaluation in just this manner by potentially safely decreasing abdominal CT use in low risk children. This research study is a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial to determine whether use of the FAST examination, a bedside abdominal ultrasound, impacts care in 3,194 hemodynamically stable children with blunt abdominal trauma. The overall objectives of this proposal are 1) to determine the efficacy of using the FAST examination during the initial evaluation of children with blunt abdominal trauma, and 2) to identify factors associated with abdominal CT use in children considered very low risk for IAI after a negative FAST examination. The long-term objective of the research is to determine appropriate evaluation strategies to optimize the care of injured children, leading to improved quality of care and a reduction in morbidity and mortality.

This study is being performed to assess the effectiveness of Altrazeal(R) Transforming Powder Dressing (TPD) in patients with partial thickness burns compared to the current standard of care (SOC) dressing. Adult men and women 18-65 years old who are hospitalized with an acute (meaning the burn injury occurred less than 72 hours prior to enrollment in the study) partial thickness burn wound, less than 20 percent of total body surface area may be considered. Subjects will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to either SOC or TPD. Subjects will be followed for up to 28 days after enrollment.

Many patients suffer from chronic non-healing wounds as well as acute wounds. There is a need to develop treatments to accelerate and improve healing of chronic and acute wounds. More research is needed to evaluate the role of 4-aminopyridine (4-AP), a promising new agent with an excellent safety profile, on wound healing. The investigational treatment will be used to evaluate the role of (4-AP) on the treatment of wounds to accelerate wound healing in healthy adults. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of 4-AP on the treatment of wounds to accelerate healing. The investigational treatment will be used to test the hypothesis that 4-AP can speed wound healing.

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare the effectiveness of unseparated whole blood (referred to as Low-Titer Group O Whole Blood) and the separate components of whole blood (including red cells, plasma, platelets, and cryoprecipitate) in critically injured patients who require large-volume blood transfusions.

The EPO-TRAUMA study is a prospective, multi-centre, double-blind, phase III, randomised controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of epoetin alfa compared to placebo in reducing mortality and severe disability at six months in critically ill trauma patients. 2500 mechanically ventilated ICU patients admitted with a primary trauma diagnosis presenting to the ICU will be recruited into the study from participating study centres in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and Saudi Arabia.

Injuries to the genitalia are of concern to the military with emphasis placed on the surgical reconstruction and psychological health of these Wounded Warriors. However, despite significant surgical advances in microvascular surgery and autologous free tissue transfer, conventional reconstructions cannot truly replace the complicated structures and functions of the penis including the urethra, erogenous sensation, and erectile corporal bodies. Conventional reconstruction poses several challenges: patients may not have sufficient donor tissue due to other injuries or previous surgery; multiple operations are often needed to restore the neophallus; the final reconstruction only approximates the penis' native form; recreating the urethra is challenging and the new urethra is prone to stricture and fistula formation; the erectile function necessary for sexual intercourse is often lacking; and insufficient protective sensation can lead to penile implant extrusion, infection, subsequent explantation or loss of the reconstruction. The investigators propose this clinical trial to determine functional outcomes and quality of life for Wounded Warriors and civilians who choose to undergo penile allotransplantation. The investigators will combine extensive experience performing total penile reconstruction in a large population affected by congenital, traumatic, and therapeutically extirpated Genitourinary deformities and expertise in reconstructive transplantation using an immunomodulatory protocol to for this study. The investigators anticipate penile transplantation can potentially replace "like with like," restoring the appearance, anatomy, and function of the recipient in a manner far superior to autologous reconstruction. This project will establish the ability to perform penile allotransplantation using an immunomodulatory protocol and will compare outcomes with conventional phalloplasty patient results. Study Design: This is a non-randomized subject self-controlled clinical trial to implement a cell-based immunomodulatory protocol for penile allotransplantation. An intermediate deliverable is achieving allograft survival and functional return with reduced dosing/frequency of maintenance immunosuppression on steroid-free monotherapy (tacrolimus) immunosuppression. The long-term deliverable and goal is to demonstrate superior outcomes when compared to satisfaction and QOL in conventional phalloplasty patients 12-60 months post-transplant.

This research study is designed to allow health care professionals and researchers to answer many questions about whether a new type of physical therapy called blood flow restriction training (called BFRT) will improve recovery for those with patellar instability.

This is a pilot evaluation of the APPRAISE trauma decision-support software system ("the System"). The specific objections are as follows: 1. Evaluate the robustness of the System (i.e., whether the software performs in real-time in accordance with a priori technical specifications during real-time clinical use); 2. Evaluate whether the real-time display of the System causes distraction or confusion to clinicians treating the trauma patient such that its risks exceed its benefits; 3. Collect pilot data to allow for a statistical power analysis to design a future clinical trial evaluating efficacy.

This pilot study will determine the feasibility of implementing a combinatory rehabilitation strategy involving testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) with locomotor training (LT; walking on a treadmill with assistance and overground walking) in men with testosterone deficiency and walking dysfunction after incomplete or complete spinal cord injury. The investigators hypothesize that LT+TRT treatment will improve muscle size and bone mineral density in men with low T and ambulatory dysfunction after incomplete or complete SCI, along with muscle fundtion and walking recovery in men with T low and ambulatory dysfunction ater incomplete SCI.

This is the FIH, multicenter, open-label, sequential, multiple ascending dose trial of NG004 in patients with acute incomplete cervical SCI. The trial will evaluate the safety, tolerability, and PK of 4 dose regimens of NG004, and will evaluate the maximum tolerated dose of NG004.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the safety and performance of Oasis extracellular matrix (ECM) when used as a treatment for donor site wounds in the United Kingdom. Oasis ECM is commercially available for the treatment of partial and full-thickness skin wounds, including chronic wounds, wounds from trauma, and wounds that occur during surgery, such as donor site wounds. The ability of the Oasis ECM to promote the healing of donor site wounds will be evaluated in this study. About 40 patients (20 in each arm) over 16 years old will be involved in this study at one center in the United Kingdom.

Up to today, inadequate evidences and knowledge exist about the best prehospital management of hypotensive trauma patients and its clinical consequence on the in-hospital recovery and mortality. Also new emerging therapies such as prehospital blood transfusion and REBOA (resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta) are lacking strong evidences in, eventually, reducing hospital mortality and improving outcomes. Moreover, prehospital emergency medicine is throughout Italy an heterogeneous system that has no unique standard operating procedures and, even among HEMS (helicopter emergency medical service), management and therapies on complex trauma patients may vary upon local policies. With this study we aim to enroll hypotensive trauma patients and study factors of prehospital rescue that can be associated with in-hospital mortality and recovery, eventually even with hospital outcome. For each patients data as demographic, kind of trauma (mechanism, injury scores), therapies and maneuvers will be recorded and then analyzed in comparison with in-hospital data such as need for transfusion, ABG parameters, length of stay (in-ward and ICU), need of therapies like invasive ventilation and renal replacement therapy, recovery and outcome

The purpose of this study is to determine if a brief counseling intervention, delivered by telephone, is more effective than standard ED care, to reduce future alcohol related injuries and alcohol related negative consequences, among patients treated in the ED for injuries from an MVC and other injury mechanisms.